Outlines of Jainism

Author(s): S Gopalan
Publisher: Wiley Eastern Private Limited New Delhi

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JAINISM
his apostles (ganadharas) composed the Angas. Jacobi relies on the second version and Charpentier also contributes to the view, except that he doubts "whether the statement concerning the connection between the ganadharas and the Angas can be of much value, as there are eleven of them both, i.e., eleven gañadharas and eleven Angas”, after the loss of the twelfth Anga.''3 This coincidence according to him suggests that "the whole story may have been invented at a later date."4
The traditional belief among the Svetāmbaras and Digambaras is that the Purvas have been completely and irrecoverably lost. In Anga 4 and in the Nandi-Sūtra we find a table of contents, and, according to this the fourteen Purvas were : Utpāda, Agrāyaṇīya, Viryapravāda, Astināstipravāda, Jñānapravāda, Satyapravāda, Ātmapravāda, Karmapravāda, Pratyākhyānapravāda, Vidyānupravāda, Avandhya, Prāņāyuh, Kriyāvišala and Lokabindusāra.
II The Angas :
The Anga literature constitutes the oldest source-material on Jainism available. We shall dwell at some length on the twelve Angas.
Ācārānga : This is the oldest of the Angas and it contains two books called the śrutaskandhas. They differ very much in style and the way in which their respective subject-matters are treated. Probably the first of the śrutaskandhas is responsible for the opinion that the Acārānga represents the ancient part of the Siddhānta.
We find prose passages as well as poetic descriptions. They both treat of the mode of life (ācāra) of the Jaina clergy. These are believed to be the records of Mahāvīra's teachings to one of his disciples, Sudharman, who in turn transmitted them orally to his disciple Jambu.
The prose passages commence with the words : "I have heard, O long-lived one! Thus has that saint spoken." Here fr stands for Sudharman and 'that saint' for Mahāvīra. Long passages have, as their concluding sentence “Thus I say”.
2 Italics mine. 3 op. cit., pp. 11-12 4 Ibid., p. 12