Mahaviras Word

Author(s): Walther Shubring
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 20

The Canon of the Svetambara Jainas
It must have been in the first quarter of the sixth century CE that the city of Vală, called Valabhi in Sanskrit, in the peninsula of Kathiawāḍ in Gujarat, was witness to a religious conference of the "white" Jainas. Under the presidency of Devarddhi, one of their leaders, an attempt was made in the assemblies of believers to fix the wording of the sacred texts and this brought about their written reproduction. In this way the testimonies of Mahavira's teaching, almost a thousand years-according to the tradition-after the passing away of the master"", were saved from the process of liquidation. Since then the canon of the white-clothed ones has remained essentially unchanged. After the Anga and the group of Uvanga correlated to them, the "limbs" and the "subsidiary limbs" of the sacred teaching, sermonizing, glorifying, narrative and classifying texts, follow the Painna, the "mixed writings". These also partly deal with subjects of the teaching, partly describe and praise the religious duties but, almost without exception, in a verse form. This group of shorter texts, in contrast to the former, is not strictly limited in its number; to these is also to be added a variety of works, not all of which we possess. The conclusion of a first half, as we might say, of the canon constitutes the collection of rules for the life in community, the precepts and prohibitions, a group of texts which is named after the religious punishment (cheya), the Cheya-sutta.
The other much smaller half of the canon is evidently designed with educative intent. It begins with two largely epistemological critical works called Nandi and Anuogadāra, as an introduction into the world of ideas of the teaching; connected to it is a list of contents and names of texts, which are kept general and viewed dogmatically.2
Following this is the last group, that of the Mula-sutta which, according to its name, is meant for those who are just at the beginning (mula) of their religious career. The contents correspond to it: in two cases (Uttarajjhāyā and Dasaveyaliya) the contents are a selected and purposefully arranged series of instructive and edifying surveys of duty and knowledge, in both
For a discussion about Mahavira's date see Bechert 1983, Mette 1991a and Dundas 2002: 24f. (WB). 2 The inclusion of Nandi and Anuogadara in the group of the Painna contradicts their essentially rather uniform content and the average size of the individual texts.