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JAINISM AND BUDDHISM
Buddha Charya Page 23 (referring to Samyuttir Nikâya 55.2.1 and Vinaya Mahâvagga) says :
“ I heard thus” once the Exalted One was walking in the forest Risipattana of Benares. There he addressed Pancha Virgiya monks thus:-“() monks, the saints should not serve these two extremes :---First is this : to be addicted to sense enjoyments, a path served by savages and fit for the low and vulgar village people and full of misuses; the second is this :--to give pain to body, full of misuses, served by non-learned and miserable monks, leaving these two extremes Tathagata has searched after the middle path, which gives right view and produces Knowledge. It is for peace, discrimination, full knowledge and Nirvana. That middle path is the eight-fold path of liberation, right view etc.
This was the first sermon of the Buddha. It shows that nakedness and all other sufferings along with it were either considered by him to be difficult or unnecessary and therefore He proclaimed a path which was neither difficult nor easy. He, who is not a follower of the Nirgrantha, may say that Goutama Buddha, thinking the conduct of nakedness to be difficult and unnecessary, ordered his monks to put on necessary clothes ; while a follower of the Nirgrantha cult, who has belief that the natural condition of the body is necessary for a saint for the success of Self concentration. It is why Lord Mahavira and His predecessors followed it. It is a help in austerities. No
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