On the development of the order and the leisure of monastic life, there
followed further, the commencement of a literary and scientific activity.
The oldest attempt, in this respect, limited itself to bringing their
doctrine into fixed forms. Their results were, besides other lost works,
the so-called _Aṅga_,—the members of the body of the law, which
was perhaps originally produced in the third century B.C. Of the
_Aṅga_ eleven are no doubt preserved among the Śvetâmbaras from
a late edition of the fifth or sixth century A.D. These works are not
written in Sanskrit, but in a popular Prâkrit dialect: for the Jina, like
Buddha, used the language of the people when teaching. They contain partly
legends about the prophet and his activity as a teacher, partly fragments
of a doctrine or attempts at systematic representations of the same.
Though the dialect is different they present, in the form of the tales and
in the manner of expression, a wonderful resemblance to the sacred
writings of the Buddhists. [Footnote: A complete review of the
_Aṅga_ and the canonical works which were joined to it later, is
to be found in A. Weber's fundamental treatise on the sacred writings of
the Jainas in the _Indische Studien_, Bd. XVI, SS. 211-479 and Bd.
XVIII, SS. 1-90. The _Âchâráṅga_ and the _Kalpasûtra_
are translated by H. Jacobi in the _S.B.E_ Vol. XXII, and a part of
the _Upâsakadasâ Sûtra_ by R. Hoernle in the _Bibl. Ind._ In the
estimates of the age of the _Aṅga_ I follow H. Jacobi, who has
throughly discussed the question _S.B.E._ Vol. XXII, pp.
xxxix-xlvii.] The Digambaras, on the other hand, have preserved nothing of
the _Aṅga_ but the names. They put in their place later systematic
works, also in Prâkrit, and assert, in vindication of their different
teaching, that the canon of their rivals is corrupted. In the further
course of history, however, both branches of the Jainas have, like the
Buddhists, in their continual battles with the Brâhmaṇs, found it
necessary to make themselves acquainted with the ancient language of the