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intimate disciples. And Mahavira's instructions and opinions involving these disciplinery problems must have been the authoritative source in dealing with the similar problems for the leaders of the Jaina church after Mahā vira's demise until Bhadrabahu finally compiled some Chedasūtras. And once the Chedasūtras were authorized by the church, these naturally came to supersede the old sayings of Mahāvira. Bhadrabāhu was thus placed as the final 14 Pürvadhara in Mahā vira's Tirtha.
- Other sayings of Mahävira in the other fields of knowledge which were not expressed in the Jaina canon might have been also assumed to be included in the content of the Pūrva literature. But the church authorities at the later canonical period must have primarily understood the Pūrva in terms of the old sayings of Mahavira which became the source of Chedasūtras compiled by Bhadrababu. In that sense, it is quite logical to maintain that the Pūrva had existed once but came to be lost in due course. The Purva was established in relation to 14 and pūrvadharatva, a rddhi entrusted with a task of eradicating jñānāvarana and darśanāvaraṇa karmas. But once the processes of śukla dhyāna came to be systematized and formalized, its precise mechanism involving rddhis came to be neglected, for these rddhis had been necessary for the karma specialists in logically establishing the minute processes of destroying all the types of karmas in the four stages of sukla dhyāna. The rddhi called 14 pūrvadharatva came to be forgotten sooner or later along with the other rddhis (for no one but Umāsvāti refers to the rddhis as such), and the content of the Pūrva assumed by the then church authorities in the later canonical period sunk into oblivion in the post-canonical age. Thus, the Pūrva cam: to be regarded by the post-conomical authors as the source of 12 Angas.
[ October 1980 ]
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