International Journal Of Jaina Studies Vol 01 To 03 2005 To 2007

SR No.: 022773
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Peter Flugel
Publisher: Hindi Granth Karyalay
Publication Year: 2008
Total Pages: 202
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 19 MB

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Synchronism of the Buddha and the Jina Mahāvīra and the Problem of Chronology in Early Jainism'. in H. Bechert (ed.) 1991. The Dating of the Historical Buddha. Part 1, 132-7. Göttigen: Vanderhoeck & Ruprecht).
Kenji Watanabe's 'A Comparative Study of Passages from Early Buddhist and Jaina Texts: Ayar 2.15 Dhp 183 and Isich 29.19: Dhp 360, 361 is based on a number of papers published in Japanese between 1981-1994 and points to 'some parallelism between the Buddhist kusala and the samayika [sāmāyika] -caritra in Jainism' (141). i.e. the vow to abstain from all sinful acts, because both refer to the stopping of the influx of karma. Similar parallelisms are found with regard to samvara and vari in passages also discussed by Jaini (146).
The formidable article by Johannes Bronkhorst, 'Ajivika Doctrine Reconsidered', proposes a new solution to the conundrum of what exactly the Ajīvikas taught, which was left unsolved in Hoernle's contributions (curiously not mentioned by Bronkhorst) and in Basham's exegeses of the opaque passages describing Gosala's teachings in the Buddhist (DN 1.53f.) and Jaina (Viy 15) scriptures. Bronkhorst's interpretation is predicated on his well-publicised view that early Jainas were mostly concerned with immobility, ie, with stopping all physical and mental activity, whereas early Buddhists highlighted the role of desire and intention (157): The inactivity of the Jain ascetic was not only meant to avoid producing karmic effects in the future, but also to destroy actions carried out in the past. The Ajivika denied that present inactivity can destroy actions carried out in the past. For him these former actions will carry fruit whatever one does. However, there is no reason to believe that he rejected the possibility of non-performance of new actions' (163). However, this does not answer why the Ajivikas propagated a strict determinism. Bronkhorst's answer focuses on the less well understood passage in the DN (1.53f.): "There is no deed performed either by oneself or by others, no human action, no strength. no courage, no human endurance or human prowess (paraphrase Basham)". In his view, the Ajivikas must have believed, like the proponents of the Sämkhya school and of the Bhagavad-gita, that 'the real self does not act', and that activity belongs to the material world (169). What exactly distinguished the Ajivika position from the message of the Bhagavad-gitä, Bronkhorst fails to explain, apart from the suggestion that it may have rejected the caste-orientation of the Bhagavad-gita in favour of the idea that everyone has its own predetermined trajectory of reincarnations (ibid.). At the end of his article. Bronkhorst speculates that early Jainism may have had a similar conception of an inactive (akiriya) self, which is not in evidence in the later Jaina literature anymore. The conception of an active (kiriya) soul, as seemingly manifest in the oldest surviving Jaina
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