Some Jaina Canonical Sutras c8.2

c8.2

The *Sūtrakṛtāṅga* is the second *aṅga* and is probably much older than the *Uttarādhyayana* which resembles the *Sūtrakṛtāṅga* with regard to its objects and some of the topics treated. The object of the *Sūtrakṛtāṅga* is to guard young monks against the heretical opinions and to guide them to obtain the highest good.¹ It may be treated as the most valuable guide for young monks. According to Jacobi it lays some claim to poetical art in the variety of the metres employed and in the artificial character of some verses. It may therefore be considered as the composition of one author. Jacobi is right in pointing out that the views of the agnostics (*ajñānavādins*) are not clearly stated in the Jain texts and the explanation of the commentators is vague and misleading. But from Buddhist writings we may get a pretty correct idea of what agnosticism was like.² It must be admitted that the philosophic ideas current at the time of the Buddha and Mahāvīra are of the greatest importance to the historian of that period. In the opinion of Jacobi, Mahāvīra has established the *syādvāda* in opposition to the agnosticism of Sañjaya.