An Outline of the Religious Literature of India c8.s3.13

c8.s3.13

§ 136. There is also an obscure tradition¹ that Pushpadanta and Bhūtavalya reduced the Canon to writing in the second century A.D., but as these two are the very men who are mentioned as having been the last that knew one Aṅga orally, and with whom all knowledge of the sacred literature died, it looks as if the tradition had been invented at a late date to give the Digambaras the *kudos* of having once possessed a written canon like the Śvetāmbaras. The truth seems to be rather this, that during the time when the differences between the two sects were becoming more sharply defined, the Digambaras took so little interest in the sacred books that the Śvetāmbaras were able to manipulate them in their own interest. The Canon bears clear traces of this process of Śvetāmbara redaction. If this be the truth, we can have no difficulty in understanding why the Digambaras ‘lost’ the Canon. The traditional date for the loss, the second century A.D., just gives time for the process after the schism.