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86 : Scientific Contents in Prāksta Canons
13 in the table. However, the number of departments vary between 6 to 9 and the subject between 9 and 64.
In contrast, the A. D. and Nandi seem to revive the Bhagavati tradition of including Vedic studies in their lists. They do have only general branch of prognostics and no department of supernatural acquisitions so prominent in Sūtrakrtānga. They have about 32-37 subjects in seven departments. A tabulation of these points suggests a very irregular pattern regarding the development of departments and subjects of learning during a period of 1000 years between 500 B. C. to 500 A. D. Of course, it is observed that newer subjects have been added to the list in many cases, single general subject like non-Jaina philosophy has been expanded in eleven specific philosophies like Vaiseșika etc. which were only two in Mahāviran period. It also seems that Bhāgavat was not prevalent in Anuyogadvāra days. It got included in Nandi days. The number of pure and applied science subjects also show increase from 2 to 7 including medical and biological sciences. The number of practical arts increase to 72. It has also been pointed out that these arts should not only be learnt by textual and meaningful learning but by practice tooto. In addition, 18 crafts are also mentioned for learning'. Table 6 classifies the growth of subjects under different categories which leads us to infer that whereas many subjects have gone up, there are some subjects which have been contracted to minimum.
The science of prognostics and super natural acquisitions may be cited as examples.
It may also be pointed out that there are many subjects which are repeated, such as legendary stories, Grammar, Mathematics and others. They have been adjusted in Table 5 assuming them as one. The numeration is also based on this fact.
Sthānānga has also a repetition of 72 arts which form part of worldly learnings. The traditional scholars may justify
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