A History of the Canonical Literature of the Jainas c7.62

c7.62

There is another pitfall one should be beware of. Some of the *Digambaras* maintain that all the canonical treatises got forgotten during the 12 years of famine in the reign of Candragupta Maurya, and the canon as shaped at Pāṭaliputra by the *Śvetāmbaras* is at best a patch-work and is not genuine. They believe that the end of the *Vīra Saṃvat* 683 or so marks the complete extinction of the *Jaina* canon. This sounds very strange; for, one can understand if some works or their parts get forgotten in course of time, in adverse circumstances; but a sweeping remark that not even an iota of the *Jaina* canon survived the year *Vīra Saṃvat* 683 or so passes comprehension, unless it may be due to a miracle or a catastrophe of terrible intensity. So far as I know, there is no record or reference to any such thing in the annals of the Indian History.¹