________________
SACRED LITERATURE OF THE JAINS
147
-
Vasudeva in Baravati.780 In his former birth he was converted or turned to the study of the sāmaia-m-adiāi ekkārasa argaiṁ by the Siddhatthänāma āyariyā. A prophecy in reference to his future birth is added to the above recital. At the end the five texts are again called the "uvaṁgāņi'' or the 5 vargas of one śrutaskandha : nirayāvalia sutakkhardho samatto, samattāņi a uvařgāņi, nirayāvalia-uvařge naṁ ego suakkham. dho parca vagga paṁcasu divasesu uddissarti.
This last statement in reference to the number of days which are necessary to teach or to recite them, is found (425] in exactly the same form in the corresponding angas —see p. 280. The three sāmāyāris, contain detailed statements in reference to each.
The historical value of these legends is, apart from the traditions contained in up. 8, without doubt very slight indeed. The largest por. tion of their contents is as purely fictitious as was the case in anga 6 fg. (see p. 338). Nevertheless, since they contain information (e.g. in respect to the activity of Pasa, which preceded that of Mahavira), we may claim for them a value as regards our estimation of the relations under which we have to consider the life and works of Mahavira.
We have seen above that the uniformity of the contents, and the "homogeneous method of treating it in all the five texts, make for the conclusion that they originally formed but one text. Tradition calls them merely the five parts of one śrutaskandha. Their enumeration as five separate texts was caused by the desire to have the number of the uvařgas correspond to that of the angas. The fact is that the special limitations of the number of the angas to eleven which is found in uv. 8-12 must be regarded as a strange contradiction of the desire to assimilate the number of the uvargas to that of the angas. The title vágga belongs also to angas 6 and 8, as an appendix or supplement to the latter' of which two, these five texts may have come into existence. The history of the first vagga here (uv. 8-12) is, to a certain extent, an elucidatory supplement to the last of the vaggas there, i.e. in anga -8...
[426] The third group of the texts of the Siddhanta is formed by the ten painnas prakirņas.
* 780At the head of 10 Dasāra : Samuddavijaya etc., 5 Mahavira : Baladeva etc., 16,000
kings; Uggasena etc., 3; koti of kumāra : Payyunna etc., 60.000 duddathta (?): Sambaya etc., 21.000 vira : Virasena etc., 16,000 devi : Ruppini, etc. and many thousand gania : Anamgaseņā etc. The same court is found according to Leumanp in anga 6, p. 526, 1231, and anga 8 1.
