the origin of the sect. But we are not from this fact obliged to assume that the Gainas in the time intermediate between their last prophet and the composition of their canon had to rely on nothing more solid than a religious and legendary tradition, never brought into a fixed form. In that case, Mr. Barth's objections to the trustworthiness of the Gaina tradition would, it is true, not be without ground. However, we are told by the Svetâmbaras, as well as the Digambaras, that besides the Aṅgas, there existed other and probably older works, called Pûrvas, of which there were originally fourteen. The knowledge of these Pûrvas was gradually lost, till at last it became totally extinct. The tradition of the Svetâmbaras about the fourteen Pûrvas is this: the fourteen Pûrvas had been incorporated in the twelfth Aṅga, the Drishtivâda, which was lost before 1000 AV. But a detailed table of contents of it, and consequently of the Pûrvas, has survived in the fourth Aṅga, the Samavâyâṅga, and in the Nandî Sûtra. [1] Whether the Pûrvas, contained in the Drishtivâda, were the original ones, or, as I am inclined to believe, only abstracts of them, we cannot decide; at all events there has been a more detailed tradition about what they contained.
Now we should as a rule be careful in crediting any tradition about some lost book or books of great antiquity, because such a tradition is frequently invented by an author to furnish his doctrines with an authority from which they may be derived. But in our case, there are no grounds for suspecting the correctness of so general and old a tradition as that about the Pûrvas. For the Aṅgas do not derive their authority from the Pûrvas, but are believed to be coeval with the creation of the world. As a fraud, the tradition about the Pûrvas would therefore be unintelligible; but accepted as truth, it well falls in with our views about the development of the Gaina literature. The name itself testifies to the fact that the Pûrvas were superseded by a new canon, for pûrva means former, earlier; [2]
- ↑ See Weber, Indische Studien, XVI, p. 341 seqq.
- ↑ The Gainas explain the meaning of the word pûrva in the following way. TheTîrthakara himself taught the Pûrvas to his disciples, the Ganadharas. The Ganadharas then composed the Aṅgas. There is evidently some truth in this tradition, as it does not agree with the dogma of the Aṅgas, being taught already by the first Tîrthakara. See Weber, Indische Studien, XVI, p. 353.
