Sacred Literature of the Jains

Summary

The article "Sacred Literature of the Jains" continues the author's examination of the canonical texts of Jainism. Beginning with the enumeration of the seven groups of Jaina scriptures, the author notes that six of these groups belong to the orthodox system and one to the heterodox tradition. He explains that the scholia associated with the Nandi commentary list the seven groups as caturvyuha and terävädi; each group is then subdivided into schools such as the Gossapravartana‑kalika and the Padapada‑siddhiddhi. The author uses this classification as a starting point for a meticulous philological survey of the Jaina canon. A large portion of the article is devoted to the 14 pūrvas, the earliest and most revered Jaina scriptures. These ancient texts were said to have been preached by Mahāvīra himself to his chief disciples, the gaṇadharas. The author describes how these pūrvas form the third part of the canon and are regarded as containing the doctrinal core of Jainism. He explains that each pūrva was subdivided into many sections and verses (padas) and that the enormous figures given in the scholia for the number of verses illustrate the scale of the literature. The author also traces the fate of these texts: according to Jaina tradition the knowledge of the pūrvas declined a few centuries after Mahāvīra’s nirvāṇa and most of them were lost. Modern scholarship confirms that only the names of the pūrvas survive; the teachings are preserved indirectly in later commentarieshttps://www.cs.colostate.edu/~malaiya/agamas.html#:~:text=Around%20500%20A,documented%20Jain%20scriptures%20and%20literature. The article also discusses the agamas, the canonical texts that were compiled after Mahāvīra’s death. Following a famine in Pāṭaliputra, the Jaina community split into two major sects – Śvetāmbara and Digambara – and the surviving disciples assembled their oral traditions into written collectionshttps://www.cs.colostate.edu/~malaiya/agamas.html#:~:text=Around%20500%20A,documented%20Jain%20scriptures%20and%20literature. These agamas are divided into the 11 angas, which contain Mahāvīra’s sermons, and a larger set of ang‑bahya texts that expand upon themhttps://www.cs.colostate.edu/~malaiya/agamas.html#:~:text=Lord%20Mahavir%27s%20preaching%20was%20methodically,books%20complied%20by%20many%20followers. The Śvetāmbara sect accepts 11 angas and 34 ang‑bahya texts (12 upāngas, 6 cheda‑sūtras, 4 mūla‑sūtras, 2 cūlikā‑sūtras and 10 prakīrṇas)https://www.cs.colostate.edu/~malaiya/agamas.html#:~:text=The%20Swetambar%20sect%20has%20divided,agams%20into%20the%20following%20categories, while the Digambaras believe that all of the agamas were lost and rely on later works such as the Ṣaṭkhaṇḍāgama and Kaṣāya‑pāhuḍahttps://www.cs.colostate.edu/~malaiya/agamas.html#:~:text=Digambar%20Jain%20Literature%3A. By tracing the evolution of these categories, the author shows how the Jaina canon grew from an oral tradition into a complex body of literature and how different sects preserved or rejected particular texts. Although the article’s philological details are dense, it highlights the diversity of genres within the canon – sermons, commentaries, narratives, cosmological treatises, law books and ethics manuals – and emphasises that the Jaina scriptural tradition, unlike the single sacred book of other religions, comprises a multiplicity of textshttps://www.cs.colostate.edu/~malaiya/agamas.html#:~:text=Jain%20literature%20is%20classified%20into,two%20major%20categories.