Some Jaina Canonical Sutras

Author(s): Bimla Charn Law
Publisher: Royal Asiatic Society

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of Baladeva and Vasudeva.1 Samkarṣaṇa (Baladeva) and Vasudeva figure as special objects of worship also in the Ghosundi stone inscription. Among the five viras or family heroes of the Vṛṣṇis, Baladeva was given precedence over Vasudeva. But since the name of samba was eliminated from the list and the caturvyuha doctrine came into existence in about the first or second century A.D., Vasudeva came to occupy the first and the most important place. The two lists of twenty-four Tirthankaras, the one relegated to the Airavata kalpa and the other to the future cosmic system, are absolutely fantastic and they carry no meaning save and except that according to the Jain conception the present is just a repetition of the past as future is that of the present. The enumeration of the different doctrinal points of Jainism, the classification of the living beings according to the species, soul-types, existences, activities and destinies, the classification of the gods, asurakumāras and the infernal beings, are all too trivial to deserve full treatment here.
SOME JAINA CANONICAL SUTRAS
1 Niddesa, PTS Ed., I, p. 89-Vasudevavattikā vā honti, Baladevavattikū vā honti.