Life in Ancient India as Depicted in the Jain Canons, with Commentaries: An Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey c5.s9.12

c5.s9.12

Thus we see that Devardhigaṇi was only a redactor and not the author of the Jain Canons, and the date of compilation of the Āgamas is much earlier than their redaction by Devardhigaṇi. To quote Prof. Jacobi, “Devardhi’s position relative to the sacred literature of the Jainas appears therefore to us in a different light from what is generally believed to have been. He probably arranged the already existing manuscripts in a Canon, taking down from the mouth of learned theologians only such works of which manuscripts were not available. Of this Canon a great many copies were taken, in order to furnish every seminary with books which had become necessary by the newly introduced change in the method of religious instructions. Devardhi’s edition of Siddhānta is therefore only a redaction of the sacred book which existed before his time in nearly the same form. Any single passage in sacred text may have been introduced by the editor, but the bulk of Siddhānta is certainly not of his making”.⁹ Thus the Canon which Devardhigaṇi compiled and which has come down to us is the final result of a literary activity that must have started as soon as the Church was put on a sound footing. The earliest portion of the Canon may therefore quite possibly belong to the period of the first disciples of Mahāvīra himself, or at the latest to the second century after Mahāvīra’s death, the period of Maurya Candragupta, when a council was summoned at Pāṭaliputra.¹⁰