Buddha And Jainas Reconsidered

SR No.: 269611
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Johannes Bronkhorst
Publisher: Johannes Bronkhorst
Total Pages: 18
Language: English
Classification: Article
File Size: 2 MB

Page 16

348
JOHANNES BRONKHORST
attention, once again, to the most important conclusion which our reflections lead to: Buddhism did not borrow just anything that it happened to come into contact with. Quite on the contrary, Buddhism was susceptible to certain kinds of ideas. Buddhism was, one might say, structurally in need of a satisfactory answer to the doctrine of karma. When such solutions were present in neighbouring religious currents, some Buddhists at least were likely to borrow these solutions, or rather adjusted versions of these solutions, and absorb them into Buddhist doctrine. The possibility cannot however be entirely ruled out that in certain circumstances ideas of this kind - i.e. ideas concerning the non-active nature of the self, or concerning the need to practice mental and physical inaction - arose within Buddhism itself, without outside influence.
In conclusion we may return once more to the questions from which we started: What was the exact relationship between early Buddhism and early Jainism with regard to the central problem of karma and rebirth? And how do we explain the passages in the early Buddhist texts which proclaim practices similar to those attributed to the Jainas? I have argued that Jainism offered a very straightforward, and therefore satisfactory, answer to the problem of karma. Buddhism did not. The effects are visible throughout the history of Buddhism. It was and remained susceptible to certain kinds of non-authentic ideas and practices. Jaina-like practices, in particular, already exerted a great attraction upon the early Buddhist community. This in itself explains that such practices are occasionally recommended in the early Buddhist texts. No further explanation is necessary, as I have tried to show with the help of a number of examples. It is yet not impossible that the special teaching method of the Buddha made it even easier for such endorsements to find their way into the texts. Personally I see no need for this latter assumption, but nor do I see the need to deny its possibility.