Compendium of Jainism

Author(s): T K Tukol, A N Upadhye
Publisher: Prasaranga Karnatak University Dharwar

Page 17

JAINISM AND ITS ANTIQUITY
accustomed to call classical4b. Toynbee seems to have perhaps overlooked numerous facts brought to light by the modern research scholars mentioned in the following pages.
Mrs. Sinclair Stevenson holds the view that “both Buddhist and Jaina orders arose about the same time, the sixth century B. C., a period when the constant wars between various little kingdoms must have made the lot of the common people hideous with suffering and oppression ; and a man might well have longed to escape from all fear of rebirth into such a sorrowful world, and hoped, by renouncing everything that could be taken from him, and by voluntarily stripping himself of all possessions and all emotions, to evade the avaricious fingers of king or fortune."4
It is unnecessary to multiply similar views which in substance raise three questions relating to the antiquity of Jainism. They are 1) Is it an offshoot of Buddhism ? 2) or of Hinduism ? 3) Is it older than the Vedic Religion ?
Jainism and Buddhism
The view that both these religions arose at about the same time as expressed by Mrs. Stevenson does not hold the field since even Geo P. Taylor who has written an introduction to her book has dissented from her. He says : "Within the last thirty years a small band of scholars, pre-eminent amongst them are the late Hofrath Proffessor Buhler, Professor Jacobi, and Dr. Hoernle, have effected a great advance in our knowle cf Jainism. For long it had been thought that Jainism was but a sub-sect of Buddhism, but, largely as a consequence of the researches of Orientalists just mentioned, that opinion has been finally relinquished, and Jainism is now admitted to be one of the most ancient monastic organizations of India. So, far from being merely a modern variation of Buddhism, Jainism is older of the two heresies, and it is most certain that Mahāvira, though a contemporary of Buddha, predeceased him by some fifty years.”5