The Shatkhandagama, and the lost canon.
Digambaras hold that the original teaching was progressively forgotten and that this second-century text is the oldest thing that survives; Svetambaras hold that the canon was preserved orally and written down at Valabhi in the fifth century. Each sect built its entire scriptural authority on its answer, and there is no way to settle it.
The scriptural question splits the two sects at the root. Both agree that Mahavira's teaching was transmitted orally and that knowledge of the fourteen Purvas — the oldest and most complete body of teaching — declined progressively after him. Svetambaras hold that the eleven Angas and the wider Agama corpus were preserved, subjected to a series of councils, and finally written down at Valabhi in Gujarat around 454 or 466 CE under Devardhigani, and they treat that corpus as canonical. Digambaras hold that the loss was total: the Angas and Purvas were entirely lost, no council could reconstruct them, and the Svetambara Agamas are therefore not authentic scripture. What Digambaras have instead is the Shatkhandagama, the Scripture in Six Parts, composed by Pushpadanta and Bhutabali around the second century from the fragment of the Purva material that Dharasena still held, together with the Kashayapahuda; these are the Digambara canon, and Dhavala, Virasena's ninth-century commentary, runs to tens of thousands of verses. The disagreement is not resolvable by evidence, and each sect's entire textual authority rests on its answer.
The same ground, other faiths
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