Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

A Concise History of Science in India c5.s8: Jaina Literary Sources

A Concise History of Science in India c5.s8

Language
English

Contents

Jaina Literary Sources

c5.s8.1

Unlike Buddhism which developed into a world religion, Jainism remained confined within the geographical boundaries of India. Jainism also showed stronger affinities to Brahmanism in many respects. One result of this has been that the Jainas like the Brāhmaṇas, exhibited considerable interest in secular learning and sciences and made notable contributions to philosophy, grammar, lexicography, science of politics, astronomy, mathematics, medicine and other technical matters considered important in their times. This interest is reflected in their oldest canonical literature as well as in the production of a large number of technical literature. The Jainas have a special claim in the development of many of the Indian languages such as Tamil, Telugu and Kannada in the south and Gujarati, Hindi and Mārvarī in the north.a

The Canonical Literature

c5.s8.t1.1

The Jainas call their sacred literature the *Siddhānta* or *Āgama* and believe them to be very ancient. This literature propounds the Jaina doctrine in a discursive manner, and contains rituals, biographies of ancient religious preceptors, the direct teachings (*pravacana*) of Mahāvīra and also profane matters. The number of their canonical texts is stated to be 45 or 50; if some subsidiary elements are taken into account, this number may go up to 84 plus 36 *Nigamas* or *Upaniṣads*. The principal texts are the *Aṅgas*, the *Upāṅgas*, the *Prakīrṇakas*, the *Cheda-sūtras* and the *Mūla-sūtras*.

c5.s8.t1.2

The *Aṅgas* are twelve in number and generally deal with doctrinal matter, rituals, legends, ethics and so on. These are: the *Ācāraṅga*, the *Sūyagaḍāṅga*, the *Sthānāṅga*, the *Samavāyāṅga*, the *Bhagavatī* or *Vyākhyāprajñapti*, the *Nāyādhammakahāo*, the *Upāsakadaśa*, the *Antakṛtadaśa*, the *Anuttara-aupapātikadaśa*, the *Praśna-vyākaraṇa*, the *Vipākasūtra* and the *Dṛṣṭivāda*. The *Sthānāṅga* and the *Bhagavatīsūtras*, in particular, contain references to mathematics and astronomy and enumerate the various branches of mathematics.

c5.s8.t1.3

The *Upāṅgas*, also 12 in number, generally respond to the *Aṅgas*, but their connections with the latter are somewhat loose. The *Upāṅgas* include *Aupapātika*, the *Rājapraśnīya*, the *Jīvājīvābhigama*, the *Prajñāpanā*, the *Sūryaprajñapti*, the *Jambūdvīpa-prajñapti*, the *Candraprajñapti*, the *Nirṇayāvalī*, the *Kalpāvataṁsikā*, the *Puṣpikā*, the *Puṣpaculikā* and the *Vṛṣṇidaśāḥ*. The third *Upāṅga*, the *Jīvājīvābhigama*, as the name implies, puts forward the doctrine of the living and the non-living, gives a detailed classification of living creatures, and discusses the Jaina cosmography further elaborated in the *Jambūdvīpaprajñapti*. The fourth *Upāṅga* has some importance from the point of view of geography and ethnography. The *Sūrya-* and the *Candra-prajñapti* mean information on the sun and the moon, and are as such astronomical texts which more or less follow some of the precepts and principles found in the *Vedāṅga Jyotiṣa*. There are also important differences in the fact that these texts advocate the theory of two suns, two moons and two series of *nakṣatras* in keeping with their peculiar cosmographical ideas. The sixth *Upāṅga*, the *Jambūdvīpa-prajñapti*, deals with the Jaina views of cosmography comparable in many respects with those of the *Purāṇas*.a

c5.s8.t1.4

a Winternitz, II, pp. 427–28; 595.

c5.s8.t1.5

The *Prakīrṇakas*, meaning 'dispersed texts', are 10 in number and may be likened to the Vedic *Pariśiṣṭas*. We may specially refer to the *Taṇḍula-Veyāliya* which, in the form of a dialogue, discusses among others, matters relating to physiology, anatomy, embryology, measurement of length and time.

c5.s8.t1.6

The six *Chedasūtras* mainly deal with rituals and have much in common with the Buddhist *Vinayapiṭaka*. One of them is the *Daśaśrutaskandha* containing a *Kalpasūtra* ascribed to Bhadravāhu, who died 170 years after Mahāvīra's nirvāṇa (468 or 467 B.C.).b

c5.s8.t1.7

There are four *Mūlasūtras*, viz. the *Uttarādhyāyana*, the *Āvaśyaka*, the *Daśavaikālika* and the *Piṇḍa-Niryukti*. The first one often compared with the *Suttanipāta* of the Buddhists has great literary merit and contains occasional passages of importance to mathematics.

c5.s8.t1.8

Finally, we have two individual texts, the *Nāndīsūtra* and the *Anuyoga-dvārasūtra*, sometimes included in the *Prakīrṇakas*. Their importance lies in the fact that they deal not only with religious matters but also with secular subjects such as mathematics, grammar, philosophy, polity, *kāmasūtra*, drama and the Vedas and refer to standard Brāhmaṇic texts dealing with the *Arthaśāstra*, *Vaiśeṣika* system, *Lokāyata* philosophy and Vātsyāyana's *Kāmasūtra*.c

c5.s8.t1.9

*Chronology of the Jaina Canon*

c5.s8.t1.10

The problem of determining the chronology of the different parts of the Canon has been rendered difficult by considerable interpolations and intermixing of fairly recent elements with those of the old. The tradition itself attributes certain portions of the Canon to authors of more or less later dates. At the same time, it is possible to believe that the main core of the teachings must have existed at the time of Vardhamāna Mahāvīra. However, by a process of counting how many times the same themes have been repeated in the various *Aṅgas*, *Upāṅgas*, *Prakīrṇakas* and so on, the numerical series, the citations and diverse interrelationships, Jacobi and Schubring concluded that the most ancient portions of the Canon took their shape during the third and fourth century B.C.d From linguistic considerations, the language of the Canon is *ardhamāgadhī* containing several foreign elements of later date and is clearly different from the dialect which Mahāvīra must have used.

c5.s8.t1.11

a Renou and Filliozat, p. 613.

c5.s8.t1.12

b Winternitz, II, p. 462.

c5.s8.t1.13

c Winternitz, II, p. 473.

c5.s8.t1.14

d Renou and Filliozat, pp. 616–17.

c5.s8.t1.15

*Philosophical, Scientific and Technical Literature*

c5.s8.t1.16

As has already been remarked at the beginning, the Jainas have been credited with a voluminous production of philosophical, scientific and technical literature. One of their earliest philosophers is Kundakunda of the Digambara sect, who flourished during the first century A.D. and wrote the *Pravacanasāra* in aphoristic style to expound the Jaina epistemology and the theories of *tattva* and *astikāya*.

c5.s8.t1.17

Umāsvāmin, also known as Umāsvāti, was a pupil of Kundakunda and probably lived in the first centuries of the Christian era. His *Tattvārthādhigamasūtra* in which an attempt was made to explain the true nature of things is acknowledged as an authoritative text by both the Digambaras and the Śvetāmbaras. Written in Sanskrit, the work is divided into six sections dealing with true faith, the soul, the universe, the substances and *karman*, and the deliverance. Besides dealing with logic, psychology, cosmography, ontology and ethics, this is the most authoritative text for Jaina atomism, classification of animals and several matters of scientific interest. The work was commented upon by Siddhasena Divākara (seventh century A.D.), Sāmantabhadra (eighth century A.D.), Akalaṅka (ninth century A.D.) and a number of other prominent Jaina teachers. This was a period of great ferment in philosophical disputations in which the Jaina and Buddhist logicians had to defend their systems against the onslaughts of the Mīmāṃsakas and representatives of Brahminical orthodoxy.

c5.s8.t1.18

Haribhadra was another great Jaina philosopher and encyclopaedic writer (eighth century A.D.) deeply versed in all philosophical systems. In his *Ṣaḍdarśanasamuccaya*, he discussed the philosophical positions of Buddhism, the *Sāṃkhya*, the *Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika*, the philosophy of Jaiminī and Cārvāka's materialism. His interest in Dignāga's logic is reflected in his effort to write an unbiased commentary *Nyāyapraveśa*.a This work was commented upon by Guṇaratna (fourteenth century A.D.), an able Jaina philosopher and commentator, in his *Tarkarahasyadīpikā*.b Hemacandra (twelfth century A.D.) rendered signal service to the development of the science of grammar through his grammatical masterpiece, the *Siddhahemacandra* (*sūtra* and *vṛtti*), a well-arranged work of great clarity.c This work, however, was based on *Jainendra Vyākaraṇa* (c. A.D. 678) ascribed to Jinendra, but really composed by Devanandin.d To Hemacandra is attributed a work on *Nītiśāstra* (*Laghu Arhannīti*) of which the materials were in all probability taken from a prākṛt work no longer extant.

c5.s8.t1.19

Śāntisūri's (*d*. A.D. 1039) *Jīvavicāra* which means ‘investigations on life sciences’ is, in fact, a treatise on theology, zoology, botany, anthropology and mythology. The Jaina canonical and non-canonical texts frequently give the impression, like those of the Buddhists, of their acquaintance with, and interest in, medicine. One Jaina medical text under the title of *Kalyāṇakāraka* is known, but its date is uncertain.a The work is based on Āyurvedic texts with the difference that remedies and prescriptions intended for human beings are extended to the animals in conformity with the Jaina concern for life in general. Regarding astronomy, mathematics and cosmography, the Jainas composed special *Upāṅgas* already referred to and produced a great mathematician in the person of Mahāvīra who lived around A.D. 850.

c5.s8.t1.20

a Winternitz, II, p. 583.

c5.s8.t1.21

b Dasgupta, I, p. 114.

c5.s8.t1.22

c Renou and Filliozat, p. 95.

c5.s8.t1.23

d Keith (3), p. 432.

Linked texts (46)