Mahavira His Life and Teachings

Author(s): Bimla Charn Law
Publisher: Luzac and Co UK

Page 66

TEACHINGS
and the rest and a chronology of their gradual development. The process of growth is comparable to that of an embryo in the womb, the various parts and limbs manifesting themselves, one after the other, till the organism reaches its full-fledged form.
There was obviously a stage when the twelve Angas were known and acknowledged as the only authoritative sacred books of Jainism. The twelfth Anga, called Drştıvāda, has been lost, as the tradition of the Jaina Church persistently informs us. But even the loss of this Anga may be accounted for by the rise of other books on its basis. So, looked at from this point of view, nothing has been lost.
The Sūtrakrtānga expressly refers only to the twelve Angas as 'the Canon of the Ganins, which has been taught, produced, and declared by the Sramaņas, the Nirgranthas, viz. the Acaränga (all down to) the Drstivāda '.1 These are indeed the sacred texts that were venerated as maitthāna (mātrsthāna, Inatrices), precisely as the Buddhists viewed the five Nikāyas as mātukā or matrices of their Canon. Professor Jacobi misses the real
1 Sūtrakrtānga, II, I 27. 2 Ibid., I, 9 24
3 For this meaning of mātukā, see D L. Barua's note, I.C., Vol. I, pp. 107 foli