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A Few Parallels in Jain and Buddhist Works
The two canons, of the Buddhists in Pāli and of the Jains in ArdhaMāgadhī, present us with a few interesting parallels worth consideration. The study of such parallels is interesting both for its own sake and for the light it throws on the problem of the relation in which these two religions stand with each other. The real explanation of the similarity found therein, whether it is a case of borrowing or one of common inheritance or even one of accidental coincidence, is to be decided in each particular case by considerations of its individual peculiarities. And as such their examination will help us in forming an idea about the exact relation in which these
religions stand, particularly in their literary traditions. . Both the religions, Buddhism and Jainism, arose in the same country
of Magadha and at about the same time. As such they partook of the same surroundings which goes a long way in determining many of their common features. But besides this general similarity of spirit and form which can be explained as due to the influence of the time-spirit we find something more to think of in the present case. The canons of both these religions show similarity not only in the general moral and disciplinary tone due mainly to the fact that they embody the same general principles of ethics which are common to both these religions which is in its turn due to the circumstance of their birth and early growth, but also in matters of composition and wording which requires something more to explain them. They raise the important question of borrowings and the authentic nature of one tradition as against the other and the question of their respective age.
Even though it is now admitted on all hands that Jainism as a religion arose a few decades earlier than Buddhism, or even a few centuries before it, if we accept the view that not only Pārsva was a historical person but that the traditional date of his birth and death is equally trustworthy, a fact not beyond reasonable doubt; the question of the formation of the two canons of