Jaina Ontology

Author(s): K K Dixit
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 16

INTRODUCTORY
texts. Now it may be asked as to what difference it makes to a student of Jainism if he bases himself on a text belonging to this period rather than on one belonging to that. The idea is that Jaina thought has remained what it is since times immemorial and down to our own days, a thoroughly misconceived idea indeed. For Jaina thought, like all living organism, has, in the course of its growth, assimilated ever new material and discarded the waste. In view of its all-out importance for the historian of Jainism in general and for that of Jaina philosophy in particular the matter deserves a deeper probe. Subject-matter of the Agamic Texts and the philosophically important among them :
Both Svetāmbara and Digambara maintain that twelve Angas-viz. Ācārāngasūtra, Sūtrakrtāngasūtra etc.—are their earliest and the most basic scriptural texts but even Svetāmbaras concede that one of them—viz. Dřstivāda -has been lost (i. e. faded out of memory) long ago; (hence it is that above two catalogues of Āgamic texts mention eleven rather than twelve Angas). And even if there has been no unanimity about the number, names and classification of the remaining scriptural texts a common belief has been current that there are at least a few such ones and that they are to be called Angabahya (or Ananga pravişta) scriptural texts; (Umāsvāti even uses the word Upanga where Angabāhya is to be expected). As for the final Svetambara classification of the Angabahya scriptural texts into Upāngas, Prakirņakas, Chedasūtras, Mūlasūtras and Culikāsūtras it has some justification of its own. For the six Chedasūtras are texts devoted to the problems of monastic discipline, the four Mülasūtras texts meant to educate and edify the beginner, the two Cūlikāsūtras texts laying down in an elementary form the fundamentals of Jaina philosophy; (Āvasyakasūtra included among the Mülasūtras is in fact a class by itself inasmuch as it is a collection of six recitationformulas that accompany a Jaina's daily religious service). Similarly, the twelve Upāngas are miscellaneous texts of relatively major importance while the ten Prakrinakas are miscellaneous texts of relatively minor importance. From the point of view of chronology the oldest of all are four Chedasūtras-viz. Dasāšruta, Kalpa, Vyavahāra, Nišitha—and three Mūlasūtras- viz. Āvašyakasūtra, Dasavaikalikasutra and Uttaradhyayana while two Chedasūtraz—the Mahāpišitha and Jitakalpa, one Mülasūtra-viz. Pindaniryukti and two Cūlikāsūtras-viz. Anuyogadvāra and Nandi--are more or less recent. Similarly, the twelve Upāngas are relatively old while ten Prakırnakas are more or less recent. This means that the 34 Angabahya scriptural texts are to be studied from the point of view of subject-matter, chronology as well as importance, that is to say, they are not to be studied from the point of view of subject-matter alone-as might be suggested by their current sub-division into six groups. [There has also been a custom to see a one