Supplementary Remarks on the Connexion of Buddhism with Jainism[276].

Supplementary Remarks on the Connexion of Buddhism with Jainism[276].

Having during the progress of the foregoing Lectures, incidentally mentioned the subject of Jainism, I ought not to conclude them without explaining some of the chief points of difference between the system of the Jainas (conveniently contracted into Jains) and that of the Buddhists. The Jains in India, according to their own reckoning, number 1,222,000; but this is incorrect, for by the last Census they only number half a million. A great authority (Sir William Wilson Hunter) confirms this. (See his ‘Gazetteer’ and ‘Indian Empire.’)

Most scholars in the present day are of opinion that the Jaina Teacher Vardhamāna Mahā-vīra (Nātaputta) and Gautama Buddha were contemporaries, and that Jains were an independent sceptical sect, probably a little antecedent to the Buddhists, and were their rivals. At any rate it seems certain that the Nigaṇṭhas[277] or 530 Dig-ambara Jains, that is, a sect of naked ascetics, existed before the Buddha’s time, and that the Tripiṭaka alludes to them.

Probably Vardhamāna Mahā-vīra (usually called Mahā-vīra) was merely a reformer of a system previously founded by a teacher named Pārṡva-nātha. Not much is known of the latter, though he is greatly honoured by the Jains. His images are ‘serpent-canopied’ like those of Buddha (p. 480). His pupils are called Pāsāvaććijja (for Pārṡvāpatyīya, ‘belonging to the descendants of Pārṡva’). They were only bound by four vows, whereas Mahā-vīra’s teaching imposed five vows.

We have seen that Gautama Buddha, in the fifth century B.C., came to the conclusion that bodily austerities were useless as a means of obtaining liberation. His main idea seems to have been that liberation from the painful cycle of continued re-births, that is, from Saṃsāra, was to be obtained by means of knowledge (Bodhi), evolved out of the inner consciousness through meditation (dhyāna) and intuition; whereas, in contradistinction to this Buddhist idea, the main idea of the Jain teacher Mahā-vīra seems to have been that liberation was to be obtained through subjugation of the passions and through mortification of the body (tapas). The term Jina, ‘conqueror,’ is used in both systems, but Gautama Buddha was a Jina or conqueror through profound abstract meditation, whereas Mahā-vīra was a Jina through severe bodily austerity.

In fact, the Jains, like all other ascetics, were impressed with the idea that it was necessary to 531 maintain a defensive warfare against the assault of evil passions, by keeping under the body and subduing it. They had also a notion that a sense of shame implied sin, so that if there were no sin in the world there would be no shame. Hence they argued rather illogically that to get rid of clothes was to get rid of sin; and every ascetic who aimed at sinlessness was enjoined to walk about naked, with the air or sky (Dig) as his sole covering (Dig-ambara).

In the Kalpa-sūtra of the Jains we read that Mahā-vīra himself began his career by wearing clothes for one year and one month, and after that he walked about naked. Now Gautama Buddha was an opponent of Jain asceticism, and it seems to me probable that one of the chief points on which he laid stress was that of decent clothing. In the Dhamma-pada (141) occurs the sentiment that ‘Nakedness cannot purify a mortal who has not overcome desires.’ And again, in the Sekhiyā Dhammā we have ‘properly clad’ ‘must a monk itinerate.’ (See p. 473 of these Lectures.)

It is recorded in the Vinaya (Mahā-vagga I. 6. 7-9) that Upaka, a man of the Ājīvaka sect of naked ascetics, founded by Gosāla (said to have been a pupil of Mahā-vīra), met the Buddha just after his enlightenment, and noticing his bright countenance, asked him who had been his teacher? He replied, ‘Having gained all knowledge, I am myself the highest teacher.’ Thereupon the naked ascetic shook his head and went another road.

Clearly these naked Nigaṇṭhas, disciples of the Jain Teacher Mahā-vīra, were no friends of the Buddha. It 532 seems to me even possible that Gautama’s great rival, Deva-datta (see pp. 405, 406), may have belonged to a Dig-ambara sect who opposed the Buddha on questions of stricter asceticism, especially in the matter of clothing; for in ancient sculptures Deva-datta is generally represented naked or nearly so, and is usually in close proximity to his cousin Gautama Buddha, who, in marked contrast to the other, is always clothed. Evidently the question of dress was a crucial one, and in process of time a party seems to have arisen, even among the Dig-ambara Jains, opposed to strict asceticism in this particular.

This party ultimately formed themselves into a separate sect, calling themselves Ṡvetāmbaras, that is, ‘clothed in white garments.’ It is well known that in early Buddhism two similar parties arose, the strict and the lax. But the two Buddhist parties were ultimately reunited. The second council is supposed to have settled the controversy.

Dr. Jacobi has shown that the separation of the two Jain sects must have taken place (according to the traditions of both parties) some time before the first century of our era.

It appears probable that the strict Dig-ambaras preceded the more lax Ṡvetāmbaras, though each sect claims to be the oldest. The two Jain sects have remained separate to the present day, though in all essential points of doctrine and discipline they agree.

When I was last in India, in 1884, I ascended the two hills, Pārasnāth (for Pārṡva-nāth) and Ābū—both 533 of them most sacred places in the estimation of the Jains, and covered with their temples. My ascent of the former has been already described (p. 509). I also visited Delhi, Jaypur, Ājmere, and some other chief Jain stations. Jaypur is the stronghold of the Dig-ambara Jains, and two intelligent Dig-ambara Paṇḍits, named Phaṭe Lāl and Syojī Lāl, visited me there. We conversed for a long time in Sanskṛit, and I asked them many questions about their religion, and the points in which they differed from the Ṡvetāmbara sect.

Three chief differences were stated to be: First, the Ṡvetāmbaras object to entirely nude images of any of the twenty-four Jinas or Tīrthaṃ-karas accepted by both sects. Hence all Ṡvetāmbara statues ought to have some appearance of a line round the middle of the body, representing a strip of cloth. In one respect the images of the Jinas differ from those of the Buddhas. They have a jewel-like mark on the breast. This is especially conspicuous in Pārṡva-nāth. They are also of different colours, and have symbols (generally animals, such as a deer, tortoise, pig) connected with them.

Secondly, the Ṡvetāmbaras admit women into their order of ascetics just as Buddhists have their Bhikkhunīs, or nuns; whereas the Dig-ambaras, for obvious reasons, do not admit women.

Thirdly, the Ṡvetāmbaras have distinct sacred books of their own, which they call Aṅgas, ‘limbs of the Law,’ eleven in number, besides others, making 45 Āgamas, 11 Aṅgas, 12 Upāṅgas, 10 Pāinnas (Prakīrṇaka), 4 Mūlas, 6 Ćhedas, 1 Anuyoga-dvāra, and 1 Nandi. Dr. Bühler places the composition of the Aṅgas in the third century 534 B.C. Dr. Jacobi places them at the end of the fourth or beginning of the third century. They are written in Jain Prākṛit (sometimes called Ardha-Māgadhī, a later form than Pāli), with Sanskṛit commentaries. The Dig-ambaras substitute, for the Aṅgas, later works, also written in more modern Prākṛit (probably in the fifth or sixth century after Christ), and maintain that the Ṡvetāmbara Canon is spurious. Both sects have valuable Sanskṛit works in their sacred literature.

I now add a few characteristics of both sects of Jains as distinguishing them from Buddhists.

I need scarcely notice the fact that the Jains of the present day keep up Caste. The two Jain Paṇḍits who came to me at Jaypur were Brāhmans, and wore the Brāhmanical thread. I believe this to be a mere modern innovation, which does not properly belong to the Jain system.

More important are the following points:—The Jain saints, or prophets, are called by a peculiar name Tīrthaṃ-kara, ‘ford-makers,’ i. e. making a ford across the troubled river of constant births or transmigrations (Saṃsāra) to the Elysium of Nirvāṇa; whereas the name Tīrthaṃ-kara with the Buddhists means a ‘heretical teacher.’ Then there are twenty-four Jain Tīrthaṃ-karas, whereas there are twenty-five Buddhas. Of the twenty-four Jain saints, the twenty-third and twenty-fourth—Pārṡva-nāth (pp. 509, 529) and Mahā-vīra—are the only historical personages. The others, beginning with Ṛishabha, are mythical.

Next, the Jains have no Stūpas or Dāgabas (p. 504) for preserving the relics of their saints.

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Still more important is the point that the Jains believe in separate individual souls (Jīva), whereas the Buddhists deny the existence of souls. Souls, according to the Jains, may exist in stocks, stones, lumps of earth, drops of water, particles of fire. In Buddhism there is, as we have seen, no true metempsychosis, but rather a connected series of metamorphoses, and this stops at animals; whereas the metempsychosis of Jainism extends to inorganic matter.

With regard to the moral code two or three points may be noticed. The Jaina ‘three jewels’ are Right-belief, Right-knowledge, and Right-conduct, whereas the Buddhist Tri-ratna consists in the well-known Triad—the Buddha, the Law, and the Monkhood.

Then as to the five chief Moral Prohibitions—the fifth with Jains is: ‘have no worldly attachments;’ whereas with Buddhists it is: ‘drink no strong drink.’ I believe the Buddhists to have been the first to introduce total abstinence from strong drinks into India. The Jains, too, lay even more stress than the Buddhists on the first prohibition:—Kill no living creature. They strain water before drinking, sweep the ground with a silken brush before sitting down on it, never eat in the dark, often wear muslin before their mouths to catch minute insects, and even object to eating fruits containing seed.

Another interesting difference is that Jainism makes Dharma and Adharma, good and evil, or rather merit and demerit, two out of its six real substances—its fundamental and eternal principles (Astikāya)—the other four being matter (pudgala), soul (jīva), space and 536 time. The Jains reject the Buddhist theory of the five Skandhas (see p. 109).

Lastly, the prayer-formula of the Jains differs from the well-known ‘three-refuge’ formula of the Buddhists (‘I go for refuge to the Buddha, the Law, and the order of Monks’) thus: ‘Reverence to the Arhats, to the Siddhas, to the Aćāryas, to the Upādhyāyas, to all the Sādhus’ (Namo Arihantāṇaṃ namo Siddhāṇaṃ namo Ayariyāṇaṃ namo Uvajjhāyāṇaṃ namo loe sabba-sāhūṇaṃ).

Time will not permit me to notice minor differences, such as the Jain rule that the hair should be painfully torn off, instead of cut off, etc.

Certainly Jainism, when viewed from the stand-point of Christianity, is even a colder system than Buddhism, and has even less claim to be called a religion. Yet no system can show a greater number of temples. Every Jain who is noted for his piety builds a small temple. He never repairs the temples of others. At Pālitāna in Kāthiāwār, there is a whole city of Jain temples. Nor is it at all necessary that every temple built to hold a Jain saint should possess either priests or worshippers. What is aimed at is the acquisition of merit by the performance of pious acts.

I must conclude by expressing my opinion that Indian Jainism is gradually drifting back into the current of Brāhmanism, which everywhere surrounds it and attracts it. Jainism, like Buddhism, came out from Brāhmanism, and into Brāhmanism it is destined to return.

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