Pearls of Jaina Wisdom

Author(s): Dulichand Jain
Publisher: Parshwanath Vidyapith

Page 44

Pearls of Jaina Wisdom
Satkhandagama, which is considered to be an equivalent of the Dvādaśānga (the twelve Angas). The Digambaras have immense faith in it and consider it to be very sacred. Satkhaṇḍāgama enjoys an esteemed place not only in Jaina literature but in the entire religious and spiritual literature of India for the exhaustive and detailed description of karma and other important theories.
There is no mention of the title Ṣatkhandagama in the original text. But the famous commentator Acārya Vīrasena has discussed the text in six parts, hence it came to be known as Satkhandagama.
The Digambaras believe that when most of the Agamic literature was lost and very little of it was available, only Acarya Dharasena had the knowledge of some of the Añgas and Pūrvas. At that time he was engaged in deep meditation in the Candra cave of the Giranara mountain range in Saurastra. One day he thought that whatever knowledge of the Agamas he had, it should be imparted to some worthy persons to save it from getting lost. At that time a convention was held at Mahimānagarī, where many monks had gathered. Acārya Dharasena sent a message to them and expressed his desire to impart the knowledge of the Agamas to worthy scholars.
The monks taking part in the convention realized the importance of the message sent by Acarya Dharasena and sent two worthy monks, Puspadanta and Bhutabali to meet him. Dharasena first put the two to test and when they passed the test, delightedly imparted the knowledge of the Agamas to both of them.
These two monks later authored the Satkhaṇḍāgama. It is believed that Puspadanta wrote 177 Sūtras of the first chapter and Bhutabali completed the remaining chapter and also wrote from the second to the sixth chapter comprising 32,853 Sūtras.
In the Dhavala commentary on 'Satkhandagama' it is mentioned that the actual author of the text is Lord Mahāvīra who
imparted it to Śrī Gautama Gaṇadhara, his first prime disciple, who