48 Annuul Address, [Feb. 



strained by ihe exigencies of the time to abandon tbe rule of nakedness, 

 and to adopt the " white " dress. On the other band, those who out 

 of religious zeal chose to exile themselves rather than admit a change 

 of the rule of nakedness, made that rule compulsory on all the members 

 of their portion of the order. When on the restitution of peace and 

 plenty, the exiles returned to tlieir country, the divergence of practice, 

 which had in the meantime fully established itself between the two 

 parties, made itself too markedly felt to be overlooked. The returned 

 exiles refused to hold fellowship any longer with the (in their opinion) 

 peccant portion that had remained at home. Thus the foundation was laid 

 of the division between the two sections of the Digambaras or naked 

 ones and pvetambaras or white-clothed ones. As a consequence of this 

 difference, the Digambaras refused to acknowledge the collection of 

 Sacred Books made by the Council of Pataliputra ; and they, therefore, 

 declare that, for them, the Purvas and Aqgas are lost. The difference, 

 however, did not at once result in a definite schism: to this it does not 

 appear to have cotne till a few centuries later, when the final separation 

 took place in the year 79 or 82 A.D. On this point both sections are 

 practically unanimous, their dates only differing by three years. At 

 this time the Jain order had already spread far beyond the borders of its 

 narrow home in Bihar, and ramified into numerous schools and subdivi- 

 sions, some of which (as we shall piesently see) possessed already flourish- 

 ing settlements in Mathura. It would seem that this spii it of expansion 

 developed in the order principally in the time of Suhastin, who was the 

 head of the pvetambara section towards the end of the third century 

 B.C. ; for it is just under him that the Pattavalis record an extraordi- 

 narily large number of divisions and subdivisions. It is certain that 

 about the middle of the second century B.C. the Jain order had 

 spread as far as the Southern part of Orissa ; for the Jains are re- 

 ferred to in Kharavela's inscription on the Khandagiri rock, near 

 Cuttack. 



In the course of time the collection of sacred books, or Siddhanta 

 as it is called by the Jains, which the Council of Pataliputra had estab- 

 lished, fell mote or less into disorder. It even was in danger of becom- 

 ing extinct, owing to the scarcity of manuscripts. It became, therefore, 

 necessary to reduce it to order, and to fix it in an authorised edition of 

 manuscript " books." This was done at a Council held in Vallabhi in 

 Gujarat, under the presidency of Devarddhi, the head of one of the 

 principal schools. 



It is clear from this tradition that the collection of the Jain sacred 

 books, as preserved by the fvetambara section of the community, goes 

 back to the end of the fourth or the beginning of the third century 



