A History of the Canonical Literature of the Jainas c5.6

c5.6

According to Jainism, the universe is uncreated and unending. It has neither a beginning nor an end, though it undergoes modifications in every *samaya*, the minutest division of time. Taking the entire universe into consideration, Jainism flourishes for ever, and so do the *Jaina* scriptures. But if we were to examine this topic from the stand-point of India, we shall find that such is not the case. Even during the present cycle of time known as *Huṇḍā avasarpiṇī*,¹ Jainism got completely wiped off seven times, and even its scriptures shared no better fate.² But this refers to a very very remote age; for, for the last hundreds of millenniums, Jainism has been existing in this land, and to express it definitely, it has not disappeared, once it here got promulgated by Lord Śāntinātha, the 16th *Tīrthaṅkara*, out of 24 who flourished during the present *avasarpiṇī* period.³ This does not mean that all the *Jaina* scriptures that were then composed or compiled still survive in words, though, of course, in spirit they do exist even now in some form or other. This is what the *Jaina* tradition says.