Jainism

Author(s): N R Guseva
Publisher: Sindu Publications P L

Page 96

JAINISM
45 parts in the canon; 11 angas, 12 upangas, 10 painnas (which are considered to be mixed texts of various origins), 6 chhedasutras, 4 mulsutras and 4 independent texts.
Bhadrabahu, who after his return from the south did not acknowledge the canon, allegedly wrote 'Kalpasutra' (which is a part of the fourth chhedasutra).
Having returned from the south, the monks saw that much had changed in their absence and that the rest had forgotten the prohibition of not wearing dress and not moving about in white clothes and that the canon had been composed without the participation of Bhadrabahu and his associates. Then the community was split into Digambaras and Shvetambaras, and Digambaras refused to acknowledge the canon, declaring that all real holy texts were forgotten.
With the passing of time, the canon of Siddhanta was partly forgotten and partly modified in the process of the sprea of Jainism in India. Then a new Synod was convened in the town of Vallabhi (Gujarat) in the middle of the fifth century A.D. and the canon was re-constituted.
The canonic text contains both prose and verses. The metrics in all the early Jain texts is not vedic but folk-metrics. The Aryan metrics is very rarely found in the texts in Ardhamagadhi. The first Anga, in which the rules of life and conduct of Jains is described is considered to be the most ancient.
Sharp polemics with the Brahmins and satirical attacks on their teachings form the characteristic feature of canonic texts, reflecting hostile relations with the representatives of Vedic cults. An extract from the 3rd Anga 'Suyagadangi' (1.7) can serve as an example of such sort of texts: If it is true that it is possible to secure perfection by means of baths in cold water, then frogs, tortoises and serpents reach high perfection,
able in the process of formation of Jain community, and it became necessary to compose a clear and systematised canon.
4. Inscription of first century A.D. show that at that time two communities of Jains were already known and various schools-ganas, existed within these communities (M. Winternitz, Geschishte der Indischen Literatur, p. 294).
5. B. Ch. Law, India as Described in Early Texts of Buddhism and Jainism, p. 265.
6. H. Jacobi, Jaina Sutras, Part I, Introduction. B. Ch. Law, considered this Anga as the earliest testimony to the tenor of life of the nirgrantha