Dr. Samani Mangal Pragya
The most ancient version of Jain literature is āgama. Samavāyāṅga depicts two classes of āgamas
In Nandī, śruta jñāna (verbal knowledge) is divided in two divisions.
- Aṅgapraviṣṭa [principal canonical texts]
- Aṅgabāhya[3] [auxillary canonical works]
In Samavāyāṅga and Anuyogadvāra, we do not find separate sections for Aṅgapraviṣṭa and Aṅgabāhya. However, we find this in Nandī, which is the oldest reference. Aṅgabāhya is the creation of later sthaviras. Many Aṅgabāhya works are written prior to Nandī, and their authorship can be contributed to fourteen pūrva proficients or ten pūrva proficients and therefore, they were counted under the category of āgamic texts. This created the necessity to classify the āgama into two broad divisions i.e. aṅga bāhya and aṅgapraviṣṭa. This bifurcation seems to have been made in post- Anuyogadvāra period (sixth century after vīra nirvāṇa i.e. Lord Mahavira's salvation). We find a mention about this for the first time in Nandī, (tenth century after Lord Mahavira's salvation).
By the time, the text Nandī was written, the āgama literature had been divided into three sections-
- Pūrva
- Aṅga-praviṣṭa (Principal Canonical Texts)
- Aṅga-bāhya (Auxillary Canonical Texts)
Only the latter two are available to us at present, while the former is lost.[4]
In post Nandī period, āgamas were divided into four main classifications such as
- Aṅga
- Upāṅga
- Mūla and
- Cheda
This is the latest classification of āgamas we find at present. No such division is found before 13th-14th century of Vikram. The most ancient classification of āgama is found as two divisions, i.e. aṅga and pūrva and in the latest classification, we find this division of āgamas into four categories as mentioned above.
