Sacred Literature of Jains

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

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SACRED LITERATURE OF THE JAINS
The more exact details will be found in the second part of my catalogue of the Sanskrit and Prakrit MSS. of the Royal Library of Berlin, which is at present in the press.46* I have unfortunately been able to make use of the editions of anga 10 and upanga 2 alone out of the Calcutta and Bombay editions of the angas and upāngas, published 1876 ff.
At the conclusion of this introduction it may be permitted me to state that personally I still continue to regard the Jains as one of the oldest of the Buddhistic sects.47* The fact that the tradition in reference to the founder of Jainism deals partly with another personality than Buddha Säkyamuni himself - with the name of a man who in the Buddhistic legend is mentioned as one of the contemporary opponents of Sakyamuni - this fact, I say, does not, in my opinion, militate against the conclusion that Jainism is merely one of the oldest of the Buddhistic sects. It appears to me that the conception of the founder of Jainism as an opponent of Buddha can well be regarded as an intentional disavowal of religious opinion which took its rise in sectarian hate. The number and the significance of common features in both Buddhistic and Jain traditions in reference to the life and labours etc. of each of their founders outweight any arguments that make for the contrary opinion. If we reflect and I here repeat what I have said on page 219–that the Jain texts were, as the Jains themselves claim, codified in writing 1000 years after the death of the founder of Jainism, then it is really marvellous [241] that they appear to contain so much that is original. How large the number and how influential the character of the events which occurred in the interval, is for the present veiled in obscurity, although the information emanating from the Jains themselves (or more particularly from the Syetămbaras with whose literature we have specially to go) in reference to the seven schisms etc.48 affords us at least some slight base of operations. One fact, for example, is noteworthy : that the nakedness, which is adduced by the Brahmins (e.g. also by Varahas mih. 58,45,59,19) as a chief characteri
45* of this new catalogue Vol. I has since appeared under the title : Die Hand
schriften-Verzeichnisse der konigl. Bibliothek zu Berlin, Vol. V. Part II. Vol. I (352 pages ; see ante 1887. p. 316), Vol. II (p. 353-828) which is particularly
devoted to the sacred Jain Literature, is nearly ready.-L. 47* This view (which in Europe has apparently persuaded only M. Barth of Paris) will
scarcely be maintainable any longer, since Prof. Bühler has discovered inscriptional proofs for the authenticity of the Old Thera lists given by the Kalpasurra. see the two papers by Bühler in the Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes,
Vol. I. p. 165ff and Vol. II., (III), p. 1ff.-L. 48 According to v. 43 of Dhammaghosa's Kalasattari : terasasaehim (1300) Virā
hohimti anegahā mayavibheālbamdhasti jehim jivă bahuha kamkhai mohanian. //