Sacred Literature of Jains

Author(s): Ganeshchandra Lalwani, Satyaranjan Banerjee
Publisher: Jain Bhawan

Page 21

SACRED LITERATURE OF THE JAINS
13
dactionary remarks can be readily distinguished from that of the text. Among those parallel references, there are doubtless many, which are to be ascribed, not to the redactor but (cf. below) to the copyists; and among the kārikās may be contained many additions of a decided secondary stamp. If now we do not discuss at length the problem as to whether we are to consider all the 45 āgamas of Bühler's list as collected by Devarddhigaņi, (229) as is the belief of Jacobi, Kalpas. p. 16, we must accept this as a fact ; that their present state cannot be that to which they were possibly brought by him. Despite the firm foundation erected by his activity, and despite the care which the Jains especially have, even from the earliest times, devoted to the restoration of their MSS., nevertheless both the constitution and condition of the Siddhanta text have been subject to most important modifications. Jacobi, p. 16, 17, has called attention to the numerous pāțhas (various readings) recognized in the Scholia, and has expressed it as his conviction that it is impossible to restore Devarddhigaại's recension or text. There exist however other differences between the original and the present Siddhānta text. Not only have there been lost passages or sections of the text, which were extant at the date of the older commentaries, but also there have been inserted large interpolations which are apparent; and furthermore 'the text, according to all probability, has even suffered complete transformations. I conjecture that the reason of these changes may be sought in the influence of the orthodoxy of the Svetāmbara sect, 37 which became more and more unbending to the various divisions of sectaries. The existing Siddhānta belongs exclusively to the Svetāmbaras. The loss of the entire drștivāda (cf. below), is doubtless principally due to the fact that it had direct reference to the doctrines of the schismatics. This point of view may afford us an explanation for the omissions, additions, and transformations in the constituation of the other angas, The (230) rigour of the polemic against the annautthiya, anyatirthika, parapāşanda and against the ninhaga, nihnava, is so sharp and cutting, that we are justified in drawing ulterior conclusions, which are of significance for the history of Jain literature,
Thus we have seen above, page 222f, that of works mentioned in angas 3 and 4 with special referance to their contents and extent, eight are no longer extant, as is also the case with some 30 of the 60 anangapavitha texts mentioned in the Nandisūtra, etc. Again, it is a definite and certain conclusion that the Mahāpainna chapter of the first
37 A patent example of this inflexibility is to be found in the Kupakşakaušikaditya,