A History of the Canonical Literature of the Jainas c7.63

c7.63

There is no mention of any overflowing of the banks by some gigantic river or that of the shores by the Arabian sea or the Indian ocean leading to the submersion of the country all around and the consequent death of each and every one who knew the *Jaina* canon in part or entirety. No deluge is referred to as submerging this sub-continent. There is no reference to any volcanic eruption of which the lava reduced the surroundings to nothing. No conflagration laying its cruel hands on the country inhabited by the *Jainas*, No migration of the *Jainas* is referred to as leaving this land for some other country as was the case with the Zoroastrians who left their native land as suggested by scholars, on being persecuted by the followers of a different faith. Even then, they do possess at least some fragments of their Holy scriptures.¹ Moreover, there is no mention of any political or social revolution-a cataclysm that seriously disturbed the atmosphere. Even granting that any one or more of the catastrophes here alluded to or the like may have befallen the unlucky, how is it that it could produce such a terribly adverse effect only so far as the knowledge of the *Jaina* canon was concerned, whereas it failed to produce any perceptible effect on the Holy scriptures of the non-*Jainas* who were the co-inhabitants of the *Jainas*?