The Canon
Twelve aṅgas whose sizes double from one to the next, eleven of which survive; a twelfth, lost, that held fourteen pūrvas measured in elephant-loads of ink; and forty-five books, or thirty-two, written down a thousand years after they were spoken.
The Śvetāmbara scriptures are called āgama, what has come down. At their core stand the twelve aṅgas, the limbs, shaped by Mahāvīra's gaṇadharas from what he taught. The commentators on the Samavāyāṅga give each a size in padas that is exactly double the last — 18,000 for the Ācārāṅga, 36,000 for the Sūtrakṛtāṅga, and so on to 1,84,32,000 for the Vipākaśruta — three crore sixty-eight lakh padas in the eleven that survive. On a scale that doubles, that is a straight staircase, and the map draws it as one.
The twelfth step is missing. The Dṛṣṭivāda was lost — the tradition says a thousand years after Mahāvīra — and with it the fourteen pūrvas, whose size the tradition gives not in padas but in the ink it would take to write them: one elephant-load for the first, two for the second, doubling to 8,192 for the last. Sixteen thousand three hundred and eighty-three elephants of ink, gone. The map draws that staircase too, in outline.
Around the aṅgas the canon grew: twelve upāṅgas, six chedasūtras, four mūlasūtras, two cūlikāsūtras, ten prakīrṇakas — forty-five for the Mūrtipūjaka Śvetāmbaras, thirty-two for the Sthānakavāsī and Terāpanthī, who leave thirteen aside. The Digambaras hold that all the aṅgas were lost, and keep the Ṣaṭkhaṇḍāgama and the Kaṣāyaprābhṛta as fragments of the pūrvas.
It was carried by memory. Three The three councils settled it — Pāṭaliputra about a hundred and sixty years after Mahāvīra, Mathurā and Valabhī together some eight hundred and thirty years after, and Valabhī again at nine hundred and eighty, under Devarddhi, where it was at last written down. The pada series and the elephant-loads are the commentators' and the tradition's; the atlas prints them as such.
Measurements and counts
| Aṅgas | 12 · 11 survive |
|---|---|
| Padas in the eleven | 3,68,46,000 — each aṅga double the last |
| Pūrvas in the twelfth | 14 · 16,383 elephant-loads of ink |
| Books | 45 Mūrtipūjaka · 32 Sthānakavāsī |
| Written down | Valabhī, 980 after Mahāvīra |
| Digambara view | the aṅgas lost; the Ṣaṭkhaṇḍāgama a fragment of the pūrvas |
Connected
The 4 mūlasūtras
Four root texts, the first a new monk learns.
Four root texts, the first a new monk learns: Daśavaikālika, Uttarādhyayana, Āvaśyaka, Piṇḍaniryukti · Oghaniryukti — the Daśavaikālika of Śayyambhava, composed for his son Manaka; the Uttarādhyayana, held to carry Mahāvīra's last teaching; the Āvaśyaka, the six daily duties.
The thirty-two count three and leave the Piṇḍaniryukti aside.
| Texts | 4 |
|---|---|
| In the forty-five | all |
| In the thirty-two | 3 |
| Left aside by the thirty-two | Piṇḍaniryukti · Oghaniryukti |