Page:The Heart of Jainism (IA heartofjainism00stevuoft).djvu/44

 not in the language of the learned but of the common people; and we who have our scriptures and our book of Common Prayer in our mother tongue can understand their pride.

The Śvetāmbara do not, as a rule, allow their scriptures to be read by laymen, or even by nuns, but restrict the study of them to monks. The laity seem to read chiefly a book composed of quotations from their scriptures. The Sthānakavāsī are not so strict, and allow most of their sacred books to be read by the laity, but not the Ċhedagrantha, which they say were intended for the professed alone. The most popular of the books amongst the Sthānakavāsī laity are the Upāsaka Daśāṅga, the Āċārāṅga Sūtra, and the Daśavaikālika. To judge by their preaching and lectures the Kalpa Sūtra would seem to be the scripture most studied by the Svetāmbara sādhus.

The Digambara canon differs so entirely from the Śvetāmbara that it does not seem probable that the sect was represented at the great council of 454.

They call their scriptures their Four Veda, and members of their community at Mount Ābu and at Pālitāṇā gave the writer a list of them in the following order:

Professor Jacobi adduces in proof of the antiquity of the Jaina scriptures, amongst other things, the fact that they contain no reference to Greek astrology which was introduced into India in the third or fourth century

As we have already seen, it seems probable that, though the canon of the scriptures had been fixed in 300 by the council of Pāṭaliputra, they had not all been committed to writing, but had generally been handed down by word of mouth from teacher to disciple; the result, however, of the