Mr. Barth seems to base his theory on the assumption that the Gatnas must have been careless in handing down their sacred lore, since they formed, for many centuries, but a small and unimportant sect. I cannot see the force of this argument of Mr. Earth's. Is it more likely that a sect 6f which the not very numerous followers are scattered over a large country, or a church which has to satisfy the reli- gious wants of a great multitude, will better preserve its original tenets and traditions? It is impossible to decide this question on 4 priori grounds. The Jews and the Parsis may be adduced as instances in favour of the former view, the Roman Catholic church as one in favour of the latter. But we are not obliged to rely on such generalities in order to decide the question at issue with regard to the ainas, for they were so far from having only dim notions of their own doctrines that they pronounced as founders of schisms those who differed from the great bulk of the faithful in comparatively unimportant details of belief. This fact is proved by the tradition about the seven sects of the SVet&mbaras made known by Dr. Leumann 1 . The Digam- baras also, who separated from the 6Vetdmbaras probably in the second or third century after the Nirv^wa, differ from their rivals but little with regard to philosophical tenets ; yet they were nevertheless stigmatised by the latter as heretics on account of their rules of conduct. All these facts show that the (Jainas, even previous to the redaction of their sacred books, had not a confused and undefined creed, which would have been liable to become altered and defiled by doctrines adopted from widely different religions, but one in which even the minutest details of belief were fixed.
What has been said about the religious doctrines of the
Gainas can also be proved of their historical traditions.
For the detailed lists of teachers handed down in the
several GaAas 2 , and those incorporated in their sacred
1 See Indischc Studien, XVI. Sec Dr. Kiatt, Tnd. Ant. XI.
Introduction. Xxxv11
books, show that the ainas did possess an interest in the his- tory of their church. I do not deny that a list of teachers may be invented, or an incomplete one filled up or made pakka, as the Hindus would say ; the necessity of proving itself to be legitimately descended from a recognised authority may induce a sect to invent the names of a line of teachers. But what could have caused the ainas 'to fabricate such a detailed list of teachers, aaas, and S&kh4s las that in the Kalpa Stitra? Of most of the details the G*ainas of later times knew nothing beyond what they found in the Kalpa Stitra itself, and that is unfortunately very little, nor did they pretend to anything more. For all practical purposes the short list of Sthaviras, as it stands in the Kalpa SGtra, would have been sufficient ; the pre- servation of the detailed list, containing so many bare names, proves that they must have had an interest for the members of the early church, though the more accurate knowledge of the times and events chronicled in that list was lost after some centuries.
However, it is not enough to have proved that the G'ainas. even before the redaction of their sacred books, possessed the qualities necessary for continuing their creed and tradi- tion, and preserving them from corruptions caused by large borrowings from other religious systems ; we must also show that they did do what they were qualified to do. This leads us to a discussion of the age of the extant ^aina literature. For if we succeed in proving that the Gaina literature or at least some of its oldest works were composed many centuries before they were reduced to writing, we shall have reduced, if not closed, the gap sepa- rating the prophet of the ainas from their oldest records.
The redaction of the Gaina canon or the Siddhanta took place, according to the unanimous tradition, on the council of Valabhi, under the presidency of Devarddhi. The date of this event, 980 (or 993) A.V., corresponding to 454 (or 467) A. D. 1 , is incorporated in the Kalpa Sfttra ($ 148). Devard- dhi Gawin, says the tradition, perceiving the Siddhdnta in
1 It is possible, but not probable, that the date of the redaction fell sixty years later, 514 (527) A. D. ; see Kalpa SQtra, introduction, p. 15.
XXXVlii t?AINA SUTRAS.
danger of becoming extinct, caused it to be written in books. Before that time teachers made no use of written books when teaching the Siddh&nta to novices, but after that time they did use books. The latter part of this statement is evidently true. For in olden times books were not used, it being the custom of the Brihmans to rely rather on the memory than on the MSS., and in this they were, almost without doubt, followed by the rainas and Buddhists. But now-a-days Yatis use MSS. when teaching the sacred lore to their novices. There is no reason why we should not credit the tradition that this change in the method of instruction was brought about by Devarddhi Ganin \ for the event was of too great import- ance not to be remembered. To provide every teacher or at least every Upa^raya with copies of the sacred books, Devarddhi Gamn must have issued a large edition of the Siddhnta. This is probably the meaning of the traditional record that Devarddhi caused the Siddhanta to be written in books, for it is hardly credible that the Gaina monks should never before have attempted to write cown what they had to commit to memory ; the Brahmans also have MSS. of their sacred books, though they do not use them in handing down the Veda. These MSS. were intended for private use, to aid the memory of the teacher. I make no doubt that the same practice was observed by the aina monks, the more so as they were not, like the Brahmans, influenced by any theory of their own not to trust to MSS., but were induced merely by the force of the prevalent custom to hand down their sacred lore by word of mouth. I do not maintain that the sacred books of the Gainas were originally written in books, for the same argument which has been brought forward to prove that the Buddhist monks could have had no MSS., as they are never men- tioned in their sacred books, in which c every movable thing, down to the smallest and least important domestic utensils, is in some way or other referred to 1 ,' the same argument, I say, holds good with regard to the Gainas as long as the
f 1 Sacred Books of the East, vol. xiii, introduction, p. xxxili.
Introduction. Xxxix
monks led a wandering life; but when the monks were
settled in Uplrrayas exclusively belonging to themselves,
they may have kept there their MSS. as they do now-
a-days.
Devarddhi's position relative to the sacred literature of the Gainas appears therefore to us in a different light from what it is generally believed to have been. He probably arranged the already existing MSS. in a canon, taking down from the mouth of learned theologians only such works of which MSS. were not available. Of this canon a great many copies were taken, in order to furnish every seminary with books which had become necessary by the newly introduced change in the method of religious instruc- tion. Devarddhi's edition of the Siddhcinta is therefore only a redaction of the sacred books which existed before his time in nearly the same form. Any single passage in a sacred text may have been introduced .by the editor, but the bulk of the Siddhanta is certainly not of his making. The text of the sacred books, before the last redaction of the Siddhdnta, did not exist in such a vague form as it would have been liable to if it were preserved only by the memory of the monks, but it was checked by MSS.
On this premise we now proceed to inquire into the date of the composition of the sacred books of the Gainas. Their own dogmatical theory that all sacred books were revealed by the first Tirthakara, shall only be noticed to be dis- missed. We must try to discover better grounds for fixing the age when the chief works of the Siddhinta were composed.
As single passages may have crept into the text at any time, we can draw no valid inferences from them, even if they be sanctioned by Deyarddhi's receiving them into his revised text. I attach therefore no great weight to the lists of barbarous or un-Aryan tribes 1 , nor to the meition of all seven schisms, the last of which occurred 5^4 A.V. 2 Nothing is more common than that such details should be
1 Among the latter Arava may denote the Arabs, as Weber thinks, or, as I prefer to think, the Tamils, whose language is called Aravamu by the Dravidians.
2 See Weber, Indische Studien, XVI, p. 23?-
Xl GAINA SUTRAS.
added as a gloss, or be incorporated even in the text, by those who transmitted it either in writing or in instructing their pupils. But an argument of more weight is the fact that in the SiddhAnta we find no traces of Greek astro- nomy. In fact the Gaina astronomy is a system of incre- dible absurdity, which would have been impossible, if its author had had the least knowledge of the Greek science. As the latter appears to have been introduced in India about the third or fourth century A. D., it follows that the sacred books of the Gainas were composed before that time.
Another argument which offers itself for fixing the period of the composition of the sacred books, is the language in which they are written. But, unfortunately, it is not at all clear whether the sacred books have been handed down in that lan- guage in whiph they were composed, or in that in which they were pronounced, and transcribed in later generations, accord- ing to the then current idiom, till Devarddhi's edition put an end to the modernising of the language of the sacred books. I am inclined to believe the latter view to be correct, and look upon the absence of a self-consistent orthography of the Cain a PrAkrit as the effect of the gradual change of the vernacular language in which the sacred books were re- cited. In all MSS. of Uaina texts, the same word is not always spelt in the same way. The differences of spelling refer chiefly to the retention, omission, or attenuation of single consonants between vowels, and the retention of the vowels e,o, before two consonants, or their change in i, u. It is hardly possible that the different spellings of a word should all correctly represent the pronunciation of that word at any given time, e.g. bhtita, bhtiya; udaga, udaya, uaya; lobha, loha 1 , &c. ; but probably we must regard these methods of spelling as historical spellings, that is to say, that all different spellings presented in the MSS. which formed the materials for Devarddhi's edition of the Siddhdnta, were looked upon as authentical and were preserved in all later copies of the sacred texts. If this assumption is correct, we -
1 I do not contend that no double forms of any word were current at any time, for there must have been a good many double forms, but I doubt that nearly every word should have existed in two or three forms.
INTRODUCTION. xli
must regard the most archaic spellings as representing the pronunciation at or shortly after the epoch of the composi- tion of the sacred books, and the most modern one as repre- senting the pronunciation at or shortly before the redaction of the Siddhanta 1 . Now on comparing the^aina Prdkrit especially in the olde.st form attainable with the P&li on one side, and the Prakrit of Hala, Setubandha, &c. on the other, it will appear to approach more the Pali than the later Prakrit. We may therefore conclude that chronologically also the sacred books of the ^atnas stand nearer those of the Southern Buddhists than the works of later Prakrit writers.
