A History of the Canonical Literature of the Jainas c7.7

c7.7

That the sacred works of the Jainas were not freely reduced to writing for several centuries and thus for this period the services of the art of writing remained practically unutilized for lightening the burden of the memory, requires a satisfactory explanation. In the case of the Vaidika literature, it may be argued that its sacred character was partly responsible for this; for, it was probably feared that the most sacred possession of the race might pass into profane hands, if the Vedas were committed to writing.¹ Furthermore, the necessary guidance for cultivating proper accent and intonation—a point of great importance could be had from the lips of an animate teacher and not from the pages of an inanimate book.² Over and above this, there was a danger of a scribe committing dittographic and haplographic errors and at times misreading the characters and thus transforming the original out of recognition.³ I do not think, it is any one of these considerations that weighed heavily in the minds of the Jaina saints and that prevented them from reducing to writing the sacred works of their school. On the contrary, it appears that their desire of strictly observing their noble and ennobling mahāvrata viz. *aprigraha* prevented them from resorting to writing. Moreover, those saints who kept Mss. were denounced. This is borne out by the Cuṇṇi (p. 21⁴) on *Dasaveyāliya*, the *Bhāsa*⁵ on *Nisīha*, the *Bhāsa*⁶ on *Kappa* etc. Further, penances were prescribed to those who wrote even one letter.⁷ But the times, as it were, willed it otherwise, and in course of time these rules had to be modified,⁸ so much so that permission was given for keeping any of the five types⁹ of Mss. pertaining to the *Nijjuttis* of *kāliyasuya*¹⁰, on find-