Doctrine of Jainas

Author(s): Walther Shubring, Wolfgang Beurlen
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas

Page 43

AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JAINISM
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years before My (1230 minus 980) at an age of one hundred years. Ever since STEVENSON came to point out this moderation in quoting figures? these two dates have served as an argument for Pasa's being an historic person, though what else we are told of him in Jinac. 149f is merely a copy of Mahāvīra's biography with the exception that Pāsa is said to have been born in Benares and to have died on the Sammeya mountain in Bihar. Nor do we learn anything of importance from Pāsa's role Nāyādh II 1 and Pupph 1, 3. But he is attested as a historic personality by other passages in rendering his teaching and reporting on his followers. Mahāvira's parents are said to have belonged to Pása's lay-followers (Pāsávaccijā samanovasagā, Āyār II, 15, 16), and in his lifetime—as is confirmed by the Sāmaññaphala-Sutta of the Digha-Nıkaya)--there have been teachers (
Pijā therā bhagavanto, Viy 134b, 247b) and monks (anagāra, Viy 99a, 439a) in accordance with Pãsa's intentions The word avaccızja (also Therav 2) indicates the spiritual filiation* Pāsa was obviously of a winsome nature, for he bears the constant title of purus' ādāniya which seems to be the oldest precursor of the modern occasional titles of Lokamānya, Deśabandhu, Mahātman, etc. ādānīya means as much as ādejja which in the Karman theory stands for "suggestive". Both sects were on absolutely friendly terms, and for this we are given some valuable proof by the conversation of two of their leading representatives Rāyap 6 and Utt 237. We are assured (Vry 247b, 454a) that already Pāsa had conceived both the shape and the eternity of the world ($103) in a way as taught by Mahāvīra, though (in the second passage) the latter insists that he came to discover it independently. Yet
I Kalpa Sutra S XII Comp JACOBI IA 9, 162f COLEBROOKE (Misc Ess II, 212) does not make any use of this argument when calling D "perhaps the real founder of the sect".
2 What Isibhās 31 is given as his utterances has no individual character
3 Comp JACOBI, SBE 45, XX 4 Since dhamm'antevāsi is one of thc to terms for "son" (Thân
316a)"
5. puruşanām madhya ādaniya ädeya Vy 248b 6 Comp LEUMANN, VI OC III, 2 (Leiden 1883), p 509-524 7. Comp JACOBI, SBE 45 XXII.