Note 4 — Front matter

Footnote 4: In the stereotyped introductions to the sermons of Jina it is always pointed out that they are addressed to the Aryan and non-Aryan. Thus in the Aupapâtika Sûtra § 56. (Leumann) it runs as follows: tesim[postvocalic] "to all these, Aryans and non-Aryans, he taught the law untiringly". In accordance with this principle, conversions of people of low caste, such as gardeners, dyers, etc., are not uncommon even at the present day. Muhammadans too, regarded as Mlechcha, are still received among the Jaina communities. Some cases of the kind were communicated to me in Ah[postvocalic]madâbâd in the year 1876, as great triumphs of the Jainas. Tales of the conversion of the emperor Akbar, through the patriarch Hîravijaya (Ind. Antiq. Vol. XI, p. 256), and of the spread of the Digambara sect in an island Jainabhadri, in the Indian Ocean (Ind. Ant. Vol. VII, p. 28) and in Arabia, shew that the Jainas are familiar with the idea of the conversion of non-Indians. Hiuen Tsiang's note on the appearance of the Nirgrantha or Digambara in Kiapishi (Beal, Si-yu-ki, Vol. I, p. 55), points apparently to the fact that they had, in the North West at least, spread their missionary activity beyond the borders of India.