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OF THE ANCIENT JAINA TEXTS
tone
THE PROBLEM OF A HISTORICAL EVALUATION .
266.72 K. Dixit il
TRUPIT
A historical evaluation of the contents of the ancient Jame task beset with several serlous difficulties The most formidablo of them 18 the circumstance that we do not know for certain as to which of the Jaina texts - or text-portions are really ancient Of courae, this particular difficulty is not peculiar to the students of Jain literature, for even in the case of an allegedly ancient Brabmanical or Buddhist text the question almost 10 variably arises as to whether it is really ancient Hence it is one of the foremost tasks of the students of ancient Indian literature - Brahmanical Buddhist or Jaina - to decide upon the criteria for determining the chronology of the texts sought to be evaluated In this connection we may speak of an external criterion and an internal one By external criterion la to be understood a specific reference made to the text under study by a documentarcheological or literary - that is of known date, by internal criterion is to be understood the specific character exhibited by this text - in respect of its form or in that of its contents The two need separate treatment
Since hardly any ancient Indian toxt is of known date there is littlo question of such a text referring to the text under study, at the most wo Can say that a text making reference to another one must be posterior to the latter - this on the supposition that the roforence in question is not a later interpolation (which it well might be) Again, it is in extremely raro cages that an archeological document makes reference to a literary text An Agokan ingcription mentioning certain Buddhist scriptural texts is one such case and the same might in a way be said of a certain ancient sculptured relief- of known dato - depicting certain Jataka atories But on the whole, this class of evidence just like the class just mentioned is virtually unavailable to a student of ancient Indian literature Thug deprived of what we have called the external criterion for determining chronology he is bound to fall back upon what we have called the internal auch criterion And it is to this latter that we turn next
Light might be thrown on the chronology of a text by the stady of its form as also by that of its contents - these being two aspects of the application of the internal criterion for determining chronology By the form of a text are to be understood ita language, its metre, its style of composit104
