Chandragupta Maurya and His Times c18.3

c18.3

Jaina sacred literature had its origin in the doctrines and sermons preached by the religious leaders who used to illustrate them by apologues and legends. These, when reduced to writing, gave rise to what is known as *Kathānaka-Literature*. This Literature is marked by four stages or layers in its development: (1) *Sūtras* embodying the aphorisms of religious leaders as the nucleus; (2) *Niryuktis*, which give fuller expositions of the subjects of the Sūtras to which they belong; (3) *Chūrṇis*, which are the Prākrit commentaries on the *Sūtras* and *Niryuktis*; and (4) *Ṭīkās*, which are more elaborate commentaries on the connected *Niryuktis* and *Chūrṇis*. These four divisions of literature are not, however, very rigid: Nos. (2) and (3) reveal some amount of overlapping and mixture.