Samavayangasuttam

Author(s): Ashok Kumar Singh
Publisher: B L Institute of Indology

Page 20

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extant at the time of these texts and moreover, to be still intact, since there is no mention of any imperfection.
Abridegment in Canons
13
The tradition to abridge the text was in vogue due to learning of śruta by heart and facilitate the scribing. Pt. Bechardas Doshi13 observed, "The traditional Jaina monks considered the tendency to write and get written as sinful activities. They, nevertheless, adopted this path as an exception to safeguard the scriptures. The less writing, the better. They adopted a method to reduce the sinful activity to the least for the safeguard of the scriptures. With the help of two novel words 'vannao' and 'java' they could abridge thousands of gāthās, hundreds of sentences and their beginning was shortened as well as no deficiency occurred in understanding the meaning of the scripture."
Three reasons- the system to learn the śruta by heart, convenience by the scribe and intention to write briefly- are probable causes leading to the abridgement of the text. It undoubtedly caused no deficiency in the meaning, but it marred the charm of the text. The monks, having learnt the whole canonical literature by heart, can make out the antecedents and precedent referred to by the words 'vannao' and 'java' but the class of monks learning with the help of the manuscripts cannot do. The text, having the references of 'vannao' and 'java' has not proved much beneficial to them.
According to Pt. Bechardas Doshi, the text abridgement was done by Devarddhigani Kṣamāśramaņa. He writes "Devarddhigani Kṣamāśramaṇa while putting the agamas into writing, kept some important points in mind. Wherever he found similar reading, he avoided the later one by using the words, e.g. jaha uvavāie, jaha pannavanãe etc. to denote the omitted text. When some statement occurred repeatedly in a text, he used the word 'jāva' and wrote the last word of it refraining from the repetition.
Modern scholars held the view that the process of abridgement might have been started by Devarddhigani, but it developed in the later period. In the specimens, available at present, the abridged text is not uniform. A sūtra