BUDDHISM AND JAINISM.

I N previous papers I have traced the progress of Indian religious thought through the various stages of Vedism, Brāhmanism, Vaishnavism, S′aivism, and S′āktism, and have pointed out that all these systems more or less run into, and in a manner overlap, one another. We have seen that among the primitive Āryans the air, the fire, and the sun, were believed to contain within themselves mysterious and irresistible forces, capable of effecting tremendous results either for good or evil. They were therefore personified, deified, and worshipped. Some regarded them as manifestations of one Supreme Controller of the Universe; others as separate cosmical divinities with separate powers and attributes.

If the religion of the ancient Indo-Āryans was a form of Theism, it was a Theism of a very uncertain and unsettled character. It was a religious creed based on a vague belief in the sovereignty of unseen natural forces. Such a creed might fairly be called monotheism, henotheism, polytheism, or pantheism, according to the particular standpoint from which it is regarded. But it was not, in its earliest origin, idolatry. Its simple ritual was the natural outcome of each man's earnest effort to express devotional feelings in his own way. Unhappily it did not long retain its simplicity. The Brāhmans soon took advantage of the growth of religious ideas among a people naturally pious and superstitious. They gradually cumbered the simplicity of worship with elaborate ceremonial. They persuaded the people that propitiatory offerings of all kinds were needed to secure the favour of the beings they worshipped, and that such sacrifices could not be performed without the repetition of prayers by a regularly ordained and trained priesthood. But this was not all. They developed and formulated a pantheistic philosophy, based on the physiolatry of the Veda, and overlaid it with subtle metaphysical and ontological speculations. They identified the Supreme Being with all the phenomena of Nature, and maintained that the Brāhmans themselves were his principal human manifestation, the sole repositories and exponents of all religious and philosophical truth, the sole mediators between earth and heaven, the sole link between men and gods. This combination of ritualism and philosophy, which together constituted what is commonly called Brāhmanism, gradually superseded the simple forms of Vedic religion. In process of time, however, the extravagance of Brāhmanical ceremonial, and the tyranny of priestcraft, led to repeated reactions. Efforts after simplicity of worship and freedom of thought were made by various energetic religious leaders at various periods. More than one reformer arose, who attempted to deliver the people from the bondage of a complex ceremonial, and the intolerable incubus of an arrogant sacerdotalism.

Yet it cannot be denied that Buddhism was very different from Brāhmanism, and it is a remarkable fact that, with all his personal popularity, the atheistic philosophy of Gautama was unsuited to the masses of the people. His negations, abstractions, and theories of the non-eternity and ultimate extinction of soul, never commended themselves to the popular mind.

Even in India, where the Buddha's memory continued to be perpetuated by strong personal recollections and local associations, as well as by relics, symbols, and images, his doctrines rapidly lost their distinctive character, and ultimately, as we have already shown, merged in the Brāhmanism whence they originally sprang.

Yet it is not impossible that the first opposition to sacerdotalism may have been due to Jaina influences, and that Indian rationalistic speculation may have been inaugurated by early Jaina leaders. We know that the Buddhist king As′oka, in his inscriptions—which are referred to the third century B.C.—mentions the Jainas under the name of Nirgrantha, as if well established and well known in his time. We know, too, what has happened in our own country. Not long ago there was a reaction from extreme Evangelical religious thought in England. But because that reactionary movement is called by the name of a particular leader, it by no means follows that he was chronologically the first to set it in action. In the same way it may possibly turn out to be a fact that the Jaina Pārs′vanātha, rather than the Buddha Gautama, was the first excogitator of the heretical ideas and theories common to both. It seems to me, indeed, not improbable that Jainism, which is now at length assimilating itself to Hindūism, maintained its ground more persistently in India, not only because, unlike Buddhism, it sullenly refused to fraternize with Brāhmanism, and to court converts from other creeds, but because the lines of demarcation which separated it from the orthodox system were in some essential points more sharp and decided than those which separated Buddhism. It is, at any rate, a fact that the Jainas claim for their system a prior origin to that of Buddhism, and even affirm that Gautama Buddha was a pupil of their chief Jina, Mahāvīra. Nor will it surprise us that the legendary history of Mahāvīra, who succeeded Pārs′vanātha, and was the first real propagator of the Jaina creed, favours the theory of such a priority. True, Mahāvīra is described as the son of Siddhārtha, which is an epithet given to the Buddha. But he is also said to have had a pupil named Gautama, and his death is fixed by the concurrent testimony of both parties of Jainas, who follow different reckonings, at a date corresponding to about B.C. 526 or 527, the usual date assigned by modern research to the Nirvāna or death of Buddha being 477 or 478.

It is well known that the code of Manu—which is the best exponent of Brāhmanism—supposes a constant succession of religious guides through an infinite succession of cycles. These cycles are called Kalpas. Every Kalpa or Æon of time begins with a new creation, and ends with a universal dissolution of all existing things—including Brahmā, Vishnu, S′iva, gods, demons, men, and animals—into Brahmă, or the One sole impersonal self-existent Soul of the Universe. In the interval between each creation and dissolution there are fourteen periods, presided over by fourteen successive patriarchs or progenitors of the human race called Manus, who, as their name implies, are the authors of all human wisdom, and who create a succession of Sages and Saints (Rishis and Munis), for mankind's guidance and instruction.

The Buddhists, also, have their cycles of time, presided over by twenty-four Buddhas, or 'perfectly enlightened men,' Gautama being (according to the Northern reckoning) the seventh of the series. Similarly the Jainas have their vast periods superintended by twenty-four Jinas, or 'self-conquering sages.' The notion is that alternate periods of degeneracy and amelioration succeed each other with symmetrical regularity. Each cycle embraces vast terms of years; for in the determination of the world's epochs Indian arithmeticians anticipated centuries ago the wildest hypotheses of modern European science. A single Kalpa, or Æon, of the Brāhmans consists of 4,320,000,000 years. It is divided into a thousand periods of four ages (called Satya, Treta, Dvāpara, and Kali), under which there is gradual degeneration until the depths of degeneracy are reached in the Kali age. The Buddhist Kalpas are similar, but the Jaina cycles have a distinctive character of their own. They proceed in pairs, one of which is called 'descending,' (Avasarpinī), and the other 'ascending,' (Utsarpinī). Of these the descending cycle has six stages, or periods, each comprising one hundred million years, and called 'good-good,' 'good,' 'good-bad,' 'bad-good,' 'bad,' 'bad-bad,' during which mankind gradually deteriorates; while the ascending cycle has also six similar periods called 'bad-bad,' 'bad,' 'bad-good,' 'good-bad,' 'good,' 'good-good,' during which the human race gradually improves till it reaches the culminating pinnacle of absolute perfection. In illustration we are told to imagine a vast serpent, whose body, coiled round in infinite space in an endless circle, supports and guides the movement of the earth in its eternal progress. The head and tail of the serpent meet, and the notion is that the earth's movement alternates after the manner of the oscillating motion of a balance-wheel acted on by the coiling and uncoiling of a steel spring. First the earth moves from the head towards the tail in a downward course, and then reversing the direction moves upwards from the tail to the head. At present we are supposed to be in the descending cycle. Twenty-four Jinas have already appeared in this cycle, while twenty-four were manifested in the past ascending cycle, and twenty-four will be manifested in the future.

In Brāhmanism, Buddhism, and Jainism, the idea seems to be that the tendency to deterioration would very soon land mankind in a condition of hopeless degeneracy unless counteracted by the remedial influences of great teachers, prophets, and deliverers. In the legendary history of the Buddha Gautama, he is described in terms which almost assimilate his character to the Christian conception of a Redeemer: he is even reported to have said—"Let all the evils (or sins) flowing from the corruption of the fourth or degenerate age (called Kali) fall upon me, but let the world be redeemed."

And what are the precise character and functions of a Jina? This inquiry must, of course, form an important part of our present subject, and the reply is really involved in the answer to another question: What is the great end and object of Jainism? Briefly, it may be stated that Jainism, like Brāhmanism and Buddhism, aims at getting rid of the burden of repeated existences. Three root-ideas may be said to lie at the foundation of all three systems:—first, that personal existence is protracted through an innumerable succession of bodies by the almighty power of man's own acts; secondly, that mundane life is an evil, and that man finds his perfection in the cessation of all acts, and the consequent extinction of all personal existence; thirdly, that such perfection is alone attained through self-mortification, abstract meditation, and true knowledge. In these crucial doctrines, the theory of Brāhmanism is superior to that of Buddhism and Jainism. According to the Brāhmans, the living soul of man has an eternal existence both retrospectively and prospectively, and only exists separately from the One Supreme Eternal Soul because that Supreme Soul wills the temporary separate personality of countless individual spirits, dissevering them from his own essence and causing them to pass through a succession of bodies, till, after a long course of discipline, they are permitted to blend once more with their great Eternal Source. With the Brāhmans existence in the abstract is not an evil. It is only an evil when it involves the continued separation of the personal soul from the impersonal Eternal Soul of the Universe.

What then becomes of the doctrine of transmigration of souls, which is said to be held even more strongly by Buddhists and Jains than by Hindūs? It is thus explained. Every human being is composed of certain constituents (called by Buddhists the five Skandhas). These comprehend body, soul, and mind, with all the organs of feeling and sensation. They are all dissolved at death, and absolute extinction would follow, were it not for the inextinguishable, imperishable, omnipotent force of Karman or Act. No sooner are the constituents of one stage of existence dissolved than a new set is created by the force of acts done and character formed in the previous stage. Soul-transmigration with Buddhists is simply a concatenation of separate existences connected by the iron chain of act. A man's own acts generate a force which may be compared to those of chemistry, magnetism, or electricity—a force which periodically re-creates the whole man, and perpetuates his personal identity (notwithstanding the loss of memory) through the whole series of his separate existences, whether it obliges him to ascend or descend in the scale of being. It may safely be affirmed that Brāhmans, Buddhists, and Jains all agree in repudiating the idea of vicarious suffering. All concur in rejecting the notion of a representative man—whether he be a Manu, a Rishi, a Buddha, or a Jina—suffering as a substituted victim for the rest of mankind. Every being brought into the world must suffer in his own person the consequences of his own deeds committed either in present or former states of being. It is not sufficient that he be rewarded in a temporary heaven, or punished in a temporary hell. Neither heaven nor hell has power to extinguish the accumulated efficacy of good or bad acts committed by the same person during a long succession of existences. Such accumulated acts must inevitably and irresistibly drag him down into other mundane forms, until at length their potency is destroyed by his attainment of perfect self-discipline and self-knowledge in some final culminating condition of being, terminated by complete self-annihilation.

And thus we are brought to a clear understanding of the true character of a Jina or self-conquering Saint (from the Sanskrit root ji, to conquer). A Jina is with the Jains very nearly what a Buddha is with the Buddhists.

A Buddha with the Buddhists is a very similar personage. He is a self-conqueror and self-mortifier (tapasvī), like the Jina, and is besides a supreme guide to salvation; but he has achieved his position of Buddhahood more by the perfection of his meditation (yoga, samādhi) than by the completeness of his self-restraint and austerities.

Both Jainas and Buddhists—but especially Jainas—believe in the existence of gods and demons, and spiritual beings of all kinds, whom they often designate by names similar to those used by the Hindūs. These may possess vast supernatural and extra-mundane powers in different degrees and kinds, which they are capable of exerting for the benefit or injury of mankind; but they are inferior in position to the Jina or Buddha. They are merely powerful beings—temporary rulers in temporary heavens and hells.

They may be very formidable and worthy of propitiation, but they are imperfect. They are liable to pass through other stages of existence, or even to be born again in mundane forms, until they are finally extinguished by the same law of dissolution as the rest of the universe.

Very different is the condition of the perfect saint. He is in a far higher position, for he has but one step to take before plunging into the ocean of non-existence. He is on the verge of the bliss of extinction, and can guide others to it. He can never be dragged down again to earthly imperfection and sin. He alone is a worthy object of adoration. All other beings—divine and demoniacal—are to be dreaded, not worshipped. "There is no god superior to the Arhat," says the Kalpa-sūtra (Stevenson, p. 10). True worship, indeed, is not possible with Jainas any more than with Buddhists. They have no supreme Eternal Being, omniscient and omnipresent, ever at hand to answer prayer, ever living to be an object of meditation, devotion, and love to his creatures.

Yet a Jaina who acts up to the principles of his faith is a slave to a ceaseless round of religious duties.

The late Bishop of Calcutta told me that he once asked a pious Jaina, whom he happened to meet in the act of leaving a temple after a long course of devotion, what he had been asking for in prayer, and to whom he had been praying? He replied, "I have been asking for nothing, and praying to nobody." The fact was he had been meditating on the perfections of some extinct Jina, doing homage to his memory, and using prayer as a mere mechanical act, not directed towards any higher Power capable of granting requests, but believed to have an efficacy of its own in determining the character of his subsequent forms of existence.

It may be said that the Brāhmanical idea of a saint is much the same as that of Buddhists and Jainas. But with Brāhmans the perfect saint is not so solitary and independent in his spiritual pre-eminence. He is one of a numerous band of similar sainted personages. He has endless names and epithets (such as Rishi, Muni, Yogī, Tapasvī, Jitendriya, Yatendriya, Sannyāsī), all of which indicate that he, like the Buddha and Jina, has attained the perfection of knowledge and impassiveness, either by abstract meditation (yoga), or self-mortification (tapas), or mastery over his sensual organs (yama). He may also combine the functions of a true teacher and guide to salvation (Tīrtha). He may even, like the Buddha and Jina, have acquired such powers that any of the secondary gods, including Brahmā, Vishnu, and S′iva, may be subject to him. Finally, he may be himself worshipped as a kind of deity. Yet radically there is an important distinction between the Brāhman and the Jaina saint, for the Brāhman saint makes no pretence to absolute finality and supremacy. However lofty his position, he can never be exalted above the One Supreme Being (Brahma), in whose existence his own personal existence is destined to become absorbed, and union with whose essence constitutes the object of all his hopes, and the aim of all his aspirations.

Brāhmans, Jains, and Buddhists all alike aim at the attainment of perfect knowledge; but the Brāhman, by his Gāyatrī prayer, acknowledges his dependence on a Supreme Being as the source of all enlightenment; while the formulas of Jains and Buddhists are simply expressive of their belief in the divinity of humanity—the efficacy of human example, and the power of unassisted human effort.

And, indeed, it need scarcely be pointed out that ascetics, both wholly naked and partially clothed, are as common under the Brāhmanical system as among Jainas and Buddhists. The god S′iva himself is represented as a Dig-ambara, or naked ascetic, whenever he assumes the character of a Mahā-yogī—that is to say, whenever he enters on a long course of austerity, with an absolutely nude body, covered only with a thick coating of dust and ashes, sitting motionless and wrapped in meditation for thousands of years, that he may teach men by his own example the power attainable through self-mortification and abstract contemplation.

It is true that absolute nudity in public is now prohibited by law, but the Dig-ambara Jainas who take their meals, like orthodox Hindūs, in strict seclusion, are said to remove their clothes in the act of eating. Even in the most crowded thoroughfares the requirements of legal decency are easily satisfied. Any one who travels in India must accustom himself to the sight of plenty of unblushing, self-asserting human flesh. Thousands content themselves with the minimum of clothing represented by a narrow strip of cloth, three or four inches wide, twisted round their loins. Nor ought it to excite any feeling of prudish disgust to find poor, hard-working labourers tilling the ground with a greater area of sun-tanned skin courting the cooling action of air and wind on the burning plains of Asia than would be considered decorous in Europe. As to mendicant devotees, they may still occasionally be seen at great religious gatherings absolutely innocent of even a rag. Nevertheless, they are careful to avoid magisterial penalties. In a secluded part of the city of Patna, I came suddenly on an old female ascetic, who usually sits quite naked in a large barrel, which constitutes her only abode. When I passed her, in company with the collector and magistrate of the district, she rapidly drew a dirty sheet round her body.

In the present day both Dig-ambara and S′vetāmbara Jainas are divided into two classes, corresponding to clergy and laity. When the two sects increased in numbers, all, of course, could not be ascetics. Some were compelled to engage in secular pursuits, and many developed industrious and business-like habits. Hence it happened that a large number became prosperous merchants and traders.

Of course, in Jainism anything like a Brāhmanical priesthood would be an impossibility. Jainas reject the whole body of the Veda, Vedic sacrifices and ritual, and hold it to be a heinous sin to kill an animal of any kind, even for religious purposes. They have, however, a Veda of their own, consisting of a series of forty-five sacred writings, collectively called Āgamas. They are all in the Jaina form of the Māgadhī dialect (differing from, yet related to, the Pālī of the Buddhists, the Māgadhī Prākrit of Vararuchi, and the Prākrit of the plays), and are classed under the different heads of Anga, Upānga, Pāinna (Sanskrit, Prakīrnaka), Mūla, Chheda, Anuyoga, and Nandi. Of these the eleven Angas are the most esteemed, but the whole series is equally regarded as S′ruti, or divine revelation. The Māgadhī text is sometimes explained by Sanskrit commentaries, and sometimes by commentaries in the Mārwārī dialect, very common among merchants in the West of India. Some of the best known Angas and Upāngas were procured by me when I was last at Bombay, through the kind assistance of Dr. Bühler; but it appears doubtful whether they would repay the trouble which a complete perusal and thorough examination of such voluminous writings would entail. It may safely be affirmed that their teaching, like that of the Purānas, is anything but consistent or uniform, and that they deal with subjects—such as the formation of the universe, history, geography, and chronology—of which their authors are profoundly ignorant.

The Indian commentator, Mādhavāchārya, in his well-known summary of Hindū sects (called Sarva-dars′ana-sangraha) has given an interesting sketch of the Jainas from his own investigation of their sacred writings. Their philosophers are sometimes called Syād-vādins, "asserters of possibility," because their system propounds seven modes of reconciling opposite views (sapta-bhanga-naya) as to the possibility of anything existing or not existing. All visible objects—all the phenomena of the universe—are distributed under the two principles (tattva) or categories of animate (jīva), and inanimate (a-jīva). Again, all living beings comprised under the former are divided into three classes: (1) eternally perfect, as the Jina; (2) emancipated from the power of acts; (3) bound by acts and worldly associations. Or, again, nine principles are enumerated—namely, life, absence of life, merit (punya), demerit, passion, helps to restraint, helps to freedom from worldly attachments, bondage, emancipation. Inanimate matter is sometimes referred to a principle (tattva) called Pudgala, which it is easier for Jaina philosophers to talk about than to explain.

When we come to the Jaina moral code, we find ourselves transported from the mists of fanciful ideas and arbitrary speculation to a clearer atmosphere and firmer ground. The three gems which every Jaina is required to seek after with earnestness and diligence, are right intuition, right knowledge, and right conduct. The nature of the first two may be inferred from the explanations already given. Right conduct consists in the observance of five duties (vratas), and the avoidance of five sins implied in five prohibitions. The five duties are:—Be merciful to all living things; practise almsgiving and liberality; venerate the perfect sages while living, and worship their images after their decease; confess your sins annually, and mutually forgive each other; observe fasting. The five prohibitions are:—Kill not; lie not; steal not; commit not adultery or impurity; love not the world or worldly honour.

And, indeed, with all Hindūs respect for life has always been regarded as a supreme obligation. Ahinsā, or avoidance of injury to others in thought, word, and deed, is declared by Manu to be the highest virtue, and its opposite the greatest crime. Not the smallest insect ought to be killed, lest the soul of some relation should be there embodied. Yet all Hindūs admit that life may be taken for religious or sacrificial purposes. Not so Buddhists and Jainas. With them the sacrifice of any kind of life, even for the most sacred purpose, is a heinous crime. In fact, the belief in transmission of personal identity at death through an infinite series of animal existences is so intense that they live in perpetual dread of destroying some beloved relative or friend. The most deadly serpents or venomous scorpions may enshrine the spirits of their fathers or mothers, and are therefore left unharmed. The Jainas far outdo every other Indian sect in carrying the prohibition, "not to kill," to the most preposterous extremes. They strain water before drinking, sweep the ground with a silken brush before sitting down, never eat or drink in the dark, and often wear muslin before their mouths to prevent the risk of swallowing minute insects. They even object to eating figs, or any fruit containing seed, and would consider themselves eternally defiled by simply touching flesh-meat with their hands.

One of the most curious sights in Bombay is the Panjara-pol, or hospital for diseased, crippled, and worn-out animals, established by rich Jaina merchants and benevolent Vaishnava Hindūs in a street outside the Fort. The institution covers several acres of ground, and is richly endowed. Both Jainas and Vaishnavas think it a work of the highest religious merit to contribute liberally towards its support. The animals are well fed and well tended, though it certainly seemed to me, when I visited the place, that the great majority would be more mercifully provided for by the application of a loaded pistol to their heads. I found, as might have been expected, that a large proportion of space was allotted to stalls for sick and infirm oxen, some with bandaged eyes, some with crippled legs, some wrapped up in blankets and lying on straw beds. One huge, bloated, broken-down old bull in the last stage of decrepitude and disease was a pitiable object to behold. Then I noticed in other parts of the building singular specimens of emaciated buffaloes, limping horses, mangy dogs, apoplectic pigs, paralytic donkeys, featherless vultures, melancholy monkeys, comatose tortoises, besides a strange medley of cats, rats and mice, small birds, reptiles, and even insects, in every stage of suffering and disease. In one corner a crane, with a kind of wooden leg, appeared to have spirit enough left to strut in a stately manner amongst a number of dolorous-looking ducks and depressed fowls. The most spiteful animals seemed to be tamed by their sufferings and the care they received. All were being tended, nursed, physicked, and fed, as if it were a sacred duty to prolong the existence of every living creature to the utmost possible limit. It is even said that men are paid to sleep on dirty wooden beds in different parts of the building, that the loathsome vermin with which they are infested may be supplied with their nightly meal of human blood.

"There was a certain Brāhman in the city of Pushpavatī whose father and mother died. In process of time both parents were born again in their own son's house, the father as a bullock, the mother as a female dog. By-and-by the S′rāddha, or festive-day for the worship of deceased parents and forefathers, came round. In the morning the son set the bullock to labour hard, that a supply of rice and milk might be ready for the priests invited to the festival. When they were about to begin eating, the female dog, in which was the mother's soul, seeing something poisonous fall into the milk, snatched it away with her mouth. Upon that her son, not understanding the dog's action, flew into a passion and almost broke her back with a stick. In the evening the bullock was tied up in a cowhouse, but no food given to him after his day's toil. Both animals had become conscious of their previous state of existence, and the bullock, looking at the female dog, exclaimed, 'Alas! what have we both suffered this day through the cruelty of our wicked son!'"

As to the other precepts of the Jaina moral code, it is noteworthy that the practice of confessing sins to a priestly order of men probably existed in full force among the Jainas long before its introduction into the Christian system. A pious Jaina ought to confess at least once a year, or if his conscience happens to be burdened by the weight of any recent crime—such, for example, as the accidental killing of a noxious insect—he is bound to betake himself to the confessional without delay. The stated observance of this duty is called Pratikramana, because on a particular day the penitent repairs solemnly to a priestly Yati, who hears his confession, pronounces absolution, and imposes a penance.

The penances inflicted generally consist of various kinds of fasting; but it must be observed that fasting is with Jainas a duty incumbent on all. It is a duty only second to that of not killing. Fasting (upavāsa) is also practised by Hindūs and Buddhists, and held to be a most effective means of accumulating religious merit. Orthodox Hindūs fast twice a month, on the eleventh day of each fortnight, as well as on the birthday of Krishna (Janmāshtamī), and the night sacred to S′iva (S′iva-rātri). On some fast days fruits may be eaten, but no cooked food of any kind.

With Buddhists and Jainas the season of fasting, religious meditation, and recitation of sacred texts, far outdoes our Lenten period. The Buddhists in some parts of the world call their fasting season Wasso (corrupted from the Sanskrit Upavāsa). That of the Jainas is called Pajjūsan or Pachchūsan (for Sanskrit Paryushana). The S′vetāmbara Jainas fast for the fifty days preceding the fifth of the month Bhādra, the Dig-ambaras for the seventy following days. In both cases the Pajjūsan corresponds generally to the rainy season or its close. Possibly the practice of fasting during that period may be intended as an expiation for the supposed guilt incurred by the unintentional destruction of damp-engendered insects.

With regard to the adoration of relics, one or two points of difference between the systems may be pointed out. The Hindūs wholly object to the Buddhist practice of preserving and worshipping the ashes, hair, or teeth of their departed saints. I remarked in the course of my travels that articles of clothing, especially wooden shoes and cloth slippers, used by holy men during life, are sometimes preserved by the Hindūs in sacred shrines, and held in veneration. They must, of course, be removed from the person before actual death has supervened; for it is well known that in the minds of Hindūs an idea of impurity is always inseparable from death. Contamination is supposed to result from contact with the corpses of even their dearest relatives. The mortal frame is not held in veneration as it was by the ancient Egyptians, and as it generally is in Christian countries. Every part of a dead body ought to be got rid of as soon as possible. Hence, it is burnt very soon after death, and the ashes scattered on the surface of sacred rivers or on the sea. Nevertheless, the bodies of great ascetics are exempted from this rule. They are generally buried, not burnt; not, however, because the mere corporeal frame is held in greater veneration, but because the most eminent saints are supposed to lie undecomposed in a kind of trance, resulting from the intense ecstatic meditation (samādhi) to which during life they were devoted. In former days great ascetics were not unfrequently buried alive, and that, too, with their own consent. A crowd of admiring disciples was always ready to assist at the entombment, and it might be said in excuse that the holy men really appeared to be dead, though they were merely speechless, motionless, and senseless, in a kind of meditative catalepsy.

The Jainas hold views similar to those of the Hindūs in regard to the treatment of dead bodies. They never preserve the ashes of their saints in Stūpas, Chaityas, or Dagobas, or worship them, as the Buddhists do.

In connection with this subject I may remark, that what may be called "foot-worship" (pādukā-pūjā), or the veneration of footprints, seems to be common to Hindūs, Buddhists, and Jainas. Even during life, when a Hindū wishes to show great respect for a person of higher rank or position than himself, he reverentially touches his feet. The idea seems to rest on a kind of a fortiori argument. If the feet, as the lowest members of the body, are treated with honour, how much more is homage rendered to the whole man. Children honour their parents in this manner. They never kiss the faces of either father or mother. In some families, sons prostrate themselves at their fathers' feet. The arms are crossed just above the wrist, both feet are touched, and the hands raised to the forehead.

The notion of honouring the feet as the highest possible act of homage runs through the whole Hindū system. Small shrines may often be observed in different parts of India, sometimes dedicated to holy men, sometimes to Satīs, or faithful wives who have burnt themselves with their husbands. They appear to be quite empty. On closer inspection two footprints may be detected on a little raised altar made of stone. These are called Pādukā, "shoes," but are really the supposed impression of the soles of the feet. In the same way, the wooden clog of the god Brahmā is worshipped at a particular shrine somewhere in Central India, and we know that the footprint of both Buddha and Vishnu at Gayā, and that of Buddha at Adam's Peak, are objects of adoration to millions.

Analogous ideas and practices prevail in Roman Catholic countries. There is a wooden image of Christ on the cross in a church at Vienna, which is so venerated that, although it is a little elevated, some worshippers stand on tiptoe to kiss its feet, while others touch its feet with their fingers, and then raise their fingers to their mouths. Similarly, at Munich, in Bavaria, numbers of worshippers may be seen kissing the feet of an image of the Virgin Mary, and most travellers can testify that images of St. Peter, not to mention the living representative of St. Peter, are treated in a similar manner.

Nothing, however, comes up to the veneration of footprints among Jainas. I visited the magnificent temple erected by Hāthi-Singh at Ahmedabad, as well as the underground shrine dedicated to Ādinath, and another great Jaina temple at Kaira. The first consists of a large quadrangle, approached by a beautifully carved marble gateway. The principal shrine is in the centre. All around the quadrangle is a kind of cloister, in which are about thirty subordinate shrines, each containing the image of a particular Jina or Tīrthan-kara. All the images appeared to me to be of one type, and to resemble those of the contemplative (Dhyānī) Buddha. All are carved out of fine marble, generally of a light colour, and all represent the ascetic, in his sitting posture, wrapped in profound meditation, indifferent to all external phenomena—calm, serene, and imperturbable. The attendants of the temple were either very ignorant or very unwilling to impart information. No one could tell me whether all the twenty-four Jinas had a place in the shrines. One image of perfectly black marble was described to me as that of Pārs′vanāth.

The other temples were not very remarkable, except as affording good illustrations of "foot-worship." In one shrine I saw 1880 footprints of Nemi-nāth's disciples. In another, 1452 footsteps of the disciples of Rishabha. They were covered with offerings of grain and money. All the names of these holy disciples are given in the Jaina sacred works, and it may be remarked that the disciples of Jinas, however celebrated, are never represented by images. That privilege is reserved for the twenty-four supreme Jinas themselves. I noticed that many Hindū idols were placed outside the shrines.

Certainly Jainism, when regarded from the stand-point of a Christian observer, is the coldest of all religions, if, indeed, it deserves to be called a religion at all. Yet the number of temples in certain centres of Jainism far exceeds the number of churches and chapels in the most religious Christian districts. Every Jaina who lays claim to an excess of piety or zeal builds a temple of his own. It never enters into his head to repair the temples of other religious people. At Pālitāna, in Kāthiāwār, there is a whole city of Jaina temples, some new, others decaying, and others quite dilapidated. It is by no means necessary or usual that every temple should possess either priests or worshippers. I can certify that I saw fewer worshippers even in the most celebrated Jaina temples than in any of the Buddhist temples at Columbo or Kandy. Those who came contented themselves with bowing down before the idols, and placing flowers or grains of rice and corn on the footprints of the saints.

The Yatis have a kind of liturgy, partly in Sanskrit, partly in the Jaina form of Māgadhī Prākrit, partly in a kind of archaic Gujarātī. No real prayers are offered, but stories of the twenty-four Jinas and their disciples are recited, with singing and an accompaniment of noisy instrumental music and beating of cymbals. Religious festivals and processions are also common. I witnessed one in the town of Kaira, on the anniversary of the death of a celebrated Yati. An immense multitude of men and women paraded the streets, preceded by a very demonstrative band of musicians. In the centre was an apparently empty palanquin, borne by six men. It contained the supposed footprints of the deceased Yati in whose honour the festival was held.

A few short extracts from the Kalpa-sūtra (Stevenson, p. 103) will give some idea of the rules of discipline by which the lives of the Yatis are required to be regulated, as follow:—

"Self-restraint is to be exercised by each man individually. Self-control is the chief of all religious exercises. If a quarrel arise, mutual forgiveness is to be asked. Three daily cleansings are enjoined, morning, mid-day, and evening. A period of rest and fasting is to be observed yearly in the four months of the rainy season. During this period, male and female ascetics should by no means partake of rice, milk, curds, fresh butter, melted butter, oil, sugar, honey, spirits, and flesh. They must never use any angry or provoking language, on pain of being expelled from the community. Ascetics must carefully avoid contact with minute insects, small animals, small seeds, small flowers, small vegetables, &c. No ascetic must do anything whatever, or go out for any purpose whatever, without first asking permission of the Superior of the Convent. The head must be shaved, or the hair constantly clipped. No ascetic must wear hair longer than that which covers a cow."

With regard to the last injunction, it may be mentioned that the ceremony of initiation (dīkshā) usually takes place at the age of twelve or thirteen, and that part of the rite once consisted in forcibly pulling out every hair of the head (kes′a-lunchana). In the present day ashes are applied, and a few hairs torn out by the roots before the scissors are used.

It remains to state that the Jainas of the present period are leaning more and more towards Hindū ideas and practices. They have their purificatory rites (sanskāras), and a modified caste system. Not unfrequently Brāhman priests are invited to take part in their marriage ceremonies. Indeed, it is by no means uncommon for intermarriages to take place between lay Jainas (s′rāvakas) and lay Vaishnavas, especially in cases when both belong to the Baniya or merchant caste.

In short, Jainism, like Buddhism, is gradually drifting into the current of Hindūism which everywhere surrounds it, and, like every other offshoot from that system, is destined in the end to be reabsorbed into its source.

I must reserve the subject of the Indo-Zoroastrian creed, and modern Pārsī religious usages, for treatment in my next paper.

Monier Williams.