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Life in Ancient India as Depicted in the Jain Canons, with Commentaries: An Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey c5.s10: The Antiquity of the Canons

Life in Ancient India as Depicted in the Jain Canons, with Commentaries: An Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey c5.s10

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English

The Antiquity of the Canons

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The Canonical books of the Jains are important for many reasons. They represent the teachings of Mahāvīra and the ancient historical traditions regarding the religion of the Jains. The *Kalpa Sūtra*, for example, records Mahāvīra’s life including his itinerary during his ascetic life, his predecessors, his Gaṇadharas or heads of the Schools and the list of the Patriarchs (*Therāvalī*) together with their *gaṇas*, *kulas* and *śākhās*. The *Bhagavatī Sūtra* in its different dialogues gives a vivid picture of the life and work of Mahāvīra, his relationship to his disciples and the contemporary kings and princes. It contains a presentation of the Jain dogmas in the form of questions and answers between Mahāvīra and his disciple Indrabhūti. The *Thāṇāṅga* records the names of the eight kings ordained by Mahāvīra and various other important points of interest. The *Uvāsagadasāo* contains chapters on the lives of ten lay disciples of Mahāvīra, and the stories of the *Nāyādhammakahā* explain the teachings of the Lord. Further, the *Ācārāṅga*, the *Sūtrakṛtāṅga* and the *Uttarādhyayana* contain the oldest part of the Canon from linguistic and literary points of view.¹¹ The last-mentioned Canon consists of valuable poems in the form of beautiful parables and similes, dialogues and ballads after the true manner of the ascetic poetry of ancient India. These poems have their parallels in the Buddhist and the Brahmanic literature and bear striking resemblance to the *Jātakas*, *Dhammapada*, *Suttanipāta* and the *Śāntiparva* of the *Mahābhārata*.¹² In the *Uttarādhyayana* we come across the story of king Nimi, one of the Prateyaka Buddhas in the Buddhist legends, in which the ideal of asceticism is preached. Then there is the legend of Harikesa, the holy man of low caste, which bears an exact resemblance to the *Matanga Jātaka*. Similarly the chapters on Citra and Sambhūta and Isukāra belong to the great cycle of tales of king Brahmadatta, forming remarkable parallels to the *Jātakas*, the *Cittasambhūta Jātaka* and *Hatthipāla Jātaka*.¹³ Then the meeting between Kesī, a pupil of Pārsva, and Goyama, a pupil of Mahāvīra and their discussion on various points of ancient and contemporary creed throws a flood of light on the past history of Jainism and may be considered valuable document for the history of ancient Jain tenets.¹⁴ The *Rāyapaseniya* records a dialogue between Kesī and the king Paesī which reminds us of the *Pāyāsi Sutta* of the *Digha Nikāya*. It records another statement saying that a Brāhmana who had committed certain crimes should be branded with the image of a dog (sunaga) or a kundiya pot on his forehead,¹⁵ which coincides with a similar statement in Kautilya’s *Arthaśāstra*.¹⁶ This form of punishment, as has been remarked by Jarl Charpentier, does not occur in *Manu* and the later law-books, where corporal punishments on Brāhmanas are not permissible, which shows that the Jain Canons must be nearer to the time of Kautilya than that of the later *Dharmasāstras*. The *Rāyapaseniya* also contains various architectural and musical terms which are considerably old and are rarely found elsewhere. Then the *Ovāiya* gives a beautiful description of king Kūniya and his pilgrimage to lord Mahāvīra in Campā. The *Niryāvaliyāo* refers to the great battle between Kūniya and Cetaka when the eighteen confederate kings are stated to have sided with the latter. Lastly, the *Cheda sūtras* belong to the earliest portion of the Canon, prescribing the rules of life and conduct for the monks and nuns and the prescriptions for atonement of sins. Here we come across the rules about the entire discipline of the order, which bear resemblance to the *Vinaya* of the Buddhists.¹⁷

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¹¹ See Jacobi, *op. cit.*, pp. xl-xliii ; Winternitz ; *op. cit.*, p. 431.

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¹² See Winternitz, *Some Problems of Indian Literature*, the chapter on Ascetic literature in Ancient India, also *History of Indian Literature*, II, pp 466-70, Jarl Charpentier, *Uttarā* pp 44ff, also Prof A M Ghatage’s article ‘A few parallels in Jain and Buddhist Works’ in the *A B R S*, Vol XVII, 1936

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¹³ A number of verses are also found in common in early Pali literature and Ardhamāgadhi literature. Cf for instance the verse ‘*dhavatthu te javakāmi*’ etc in the *Dasaveyāliya* (2 7) with the verse in the *Visavanta Jātaka* (I, No 69), p 311, also the verse ‘*kahamnu kujja*’ etc in the *Dasaveyāliya* (2 1) with the verse in the *Samyutta*, Nandana Vagga, Dukkāram, p 7

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¹⁴ Jarl Charpentier, *op cit*, pp 46f., see also *Cambridge History of India*, Vol. I, Ch. VI.

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¹⁵ Sū 184.

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¹⁶ Cf. p. 264.

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¹⁷ Cf, Winternitz, *op. cit*, p 442.

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The *Brhatkalpa Sūtra* (1 50) states that the monks and nuns may wander towards the east as far as Anga-Magadha, towards the south as far as Kosambī, towards the west as far as Thūnā, towards the north as far as Kunālā. This sermon is said to have been given by Mahāvīra to his disciples while he sojourned at the Subhūmibhāga garden at Sāketa, which apparently goes back to an old time when Jainism was in its infancy and existed only in a very limited part of India round about the country of Magadha and a part of United Provinces. As a matter of fact, as it has been stated, it was Samprati, who encouraged the propagation of Jainism throughout the length and breadth of the country after he had come to power. Further, the first section of the *Brhatkalpa Sūtra* which prescribes the eating of the broken or unbroken, raw and ripe palm-fruit (*tāla*) or the fibres (*palamba*) for the Jain monks and nuns, leads us to the olden days of terrible famine which visited Magadha and is said to have lasted for a long time, when Bhadrabāhu migrated to Nepala. These precepts indicate the hardest days through which the Jain monks and nuns had to pass and how they had to live on raw palm-fruits and fibres of the trees for their subsistence. Thus in the Jain Canon there are various traditions, historical or semi-historical presenting the political, administrative, social, economic and geographical conditions, throwing an immense light on ancient history and culture of India, which prove the antiquity of the Canons.

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Lastly, a reference must be made to a large number of Inscriptions that have come to light. The Mathura Inscriptions belonging to the reign of Kaniṣka and his successors prove that the Jain community had attained a highly developed stage in the first century A D. In these inscriptions are given the names of the Patriarchs belonging to different *gaṇas* (schools), *kulas* (families) and *sākhās* (branches), already referred to, which mostly coincide with the list of the teachers and the schools founded by those teachers as given in the *Kalpa Sūtra* of Bhadrabāhu.¹⁸ Thus we see that the tradition preserved in the Jain Canons is pretty old and contains much historicity and hence as Buddhist books have been used as materials for the history of Buddhism, there is no reason why we should distrust the Jain Canons as an authentic source of the Jain Church.

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¹⁸ *Archaeological Survey Reports*, Vol III, plates XIII-XV; Buhler, *The Indian Sect of the Jains*, pp 42 60, *Vienna Oriental Journal*, Vol III and IV, article by Buhler.

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