Some Jaina Canonical Sutras c6.7

c6.7

There are the sacred texts which were venerated as *maitthāna* (*mātṛsthāna*, matrices)¹ precisely as the Buddhists held the five *Nikāyas* as *mātukā* or matrices of their canon² Jacobi wrongly equates *maitthāna* with *māyāsthāna*³ The twelve *aṅgas* were no doubt the matrices or fundamental bases of the Jain *Siddhānta*. Jacobi holds that the first book of the *Ācārāṅga* and that of the *Sūtrakṛtāṅga* may be reckoned among the most ancient parts of the *Siddhānta*. He further holds that the Vaitālīya metre used in the Pāli *Dhammapada* represents an older stage in the development of the Vaitālīya than that in the *Sūtrakṛtāṅga*.⁴ Regarding the *aṅgas* it may be shown that Ardha-Māgadhī which is the literary idiom developed in them is younger than Pāli of the Buddhist canon preserved in Ceylon. Instances of parallelism between Jainism and Buddhism may be cited as well as of the influence of the latter on the former. Such epithets of Mahāvīra as Buddha, Tathāgata, Sugata, and Sambuddha are borrowed. *Jina*, *Arhat*, *Tīrthankara*, *Vīra*, *Mahāvīra*, *Vaiśālika*, *Nirgrantha*, the great *Brāhmaṇa*, the great *Śramaṇa* and the like are the Jain specials among the titles of Vardhamāna