A History of the Canonical Literature of the Jainas c8.36

c8.36

opinion seeing that the Digambaras also have lost the Pūrvas, and the Aṅgas to boot. It is not probable that the development of Gainism during the two first centuries after the Nirvāṇa should have gone on at so rapid a pace that its two principal sects should have been brought to the necessity of discarding their old canon. For, as stated above, after the splitting of the church in these two sects the philosophical system of the Gainas remained stationary, since it is nearly the same with both sects. As regards ethics, both sects, it is true, differ more. But as the extant canon of the Svetāmbaras is not falling into neglect, though many practices enjoined in it have long since been abandoned, it is not more probable that they should have been more sensible on the same score at the time when the Pūrvas formed their canon. Besides, some of the Pūrvas are said to have continued to be extant long after the time which we have assigned for the formation of the new canon. At last they disappeared, not by an intentional neglect, I presume, but because the new canon set into clearer light the Gaina doctrines, and put them forward more systematically than had been done in the controversial literature of the Pūrvas."