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OF THE HINDUS.
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ration of the existence of the Jains, and it may be admitted that this is a better proof than the preceding, as the Pramnæ* are declared to be the opposers of the Brahmans, which is no where mentioned of the Sarmanes. This expression is said to designate the Jains, but this is far from certain: the term is probably derived from Pramáňa, proof, evidence, and is especially the right of the followers of the logical school, who are usually termed Prámáńikas: it is applicable, however, to any sect which advocates positive or ocular proof in opposition to written dogmas, or belief in scriptural authority, and is in that sense more correctly an epithet of the Bauddha sectaries than of the Jains, who admit the legends and worship the deities of the Puránas, and who hold it the height of impiety to question the written doctrines of their own teachers. The proofs from classical writers, therefore, are wholly inadequate to the decision of the antiquity of the Jains, and we are still entirely left to sources of a less satisfactory description.
All writers on the Jains entitled to our attention agree in admitting an intimate connexion between them and the Bauddhas; the chief analogies have been above adverted to, and the inference of later origin is justly founded on the extravagant exaggerations of the system adopted by the Jains. Their identity of origin rests chiefly upon the name of GAUTAMA, which appears as that of VARDDHAMÁNA's chief pupil,
* [See Lassen, Ind. Alt. I, 835, Weber, Ind. Lit. 27.]
