________________
APPENDIX V
THE ANCIENT JAIXA SACRED LITERATURE The knowledge of Śruti (Śruta-jñānu) may be of things which are contained in the Angas (sacred books of the Jainas) or of things outside the digas. There are 64 simple letters of the alphabet. Of these 33 are consonants, 27 vowels, and 4 auxiliary (which help in the formation of compound letters). The total number of possible combinations of these 64 simple letters into compounds of 2, 3, 4, or more up to 64 letters, is 18,146,744,073,709,551,615. These are the letters (simple and compound) of Sruti in its entirety. This number being divided by 16,348,307,888, which is the number of letters employed in the central portion (madhyamu-padu) of the Paramūguma, gives us the munnber of padus of the Angus as 11,283,580,005. The remainder 80,108,175 gives us the letters of that part of Sruti which is not contained in the digas. This part is divided into 14 Prakirnakas, such as the Dusu-vaikālika, Uttarādhyayana, etc.
I. THE TWELVE ANGAS The digas are twelve, as follows:
1. The Āchūru-unga comprises a full exposition of the rules of conduct for ascetics. It contains 18,000 padas (words).
