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RELIGIOUS SECTS
at what period it actually took its rise it is not easy to determine! Mr. COLEBROOKE has suggested the probability of the Jain religion being the work of PÁRÁVANÁTh, in the account of whom there is a nearer approach to sober history and credible chronology than in the narratives of his predecessors. This would throw back the origin of the Jain faith to the ninth century before the Christian era, admitting the Jain chronology of VARDDHAMÁNA's existence; but it is difficult to concur in the accuracy of so remote a date, and whatever indirect evidence on the subject is procurable is opposed to such a belief.
It has been supposed that we have notices of the Jaina sect as far back as the time of the Macedonian
1 Major DELAMAINE observes, "the usual idea of the Jains being a moderu sect may not be erroneous: the doctrines originating with Rishabha, and continued by Arhanta , dividing at periods of schism into more distinct classes, of which the Jains or Sráraks, as now established, form one, and the modern Buddhas, as in Burma, Siam, Ceylon, Tibet, &c. another.” T. R. A. S. I, 427. — “Were I disposed to speculate on the origin of the Jains from the striking coincidences of doctrine and religious usages between them and the Buddhists, I should be led to conjecture that they were originally a sect of Buddhists." Mr. Erskine, Bombay Trans. III, 502. — “It is certainly probable, as remarked by Dr. HAMILTON and Major DELAMAINE, that the Gautama of the Jinas and of the Bauddhas is the same personage, and this leads to the further surmise that both these sects are branches of one stock. - Both have adopted the Hindu Pantheon, or assemblage of sabordinate deities, both disclaim the authority of the Vedas, and both elevate their pre-eminent saints to divine supremacy." Mr. Colebrooke, Trans. R. A. S. 1, 521.
