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RELIGIOUS SECTS
From all credible testimony, therefore, it is impossible to avoid the inference that the Jains are a sect of comparatively recent institution, who first came into power and patronage about the eighth and ninth century: they probably existed before that date as a division of the Bauddhas, and owed their elevation to the suppression of that form of faith to which they contributed. This is positively asserted by the traditions of the south in several instances: the Bauddhas of Kanchi were confuted by AKALANKA, a Jain priest, and thereupon expelled the country *. VARA PANDYA, of Madura, on becoming a Jain, is said to have persecuted the Bauddhas, subjecting them to personal tortures, and banishing them from the country. In Guzerat Bauddha princes were succeeded by the Jains. There is every reason to be satisfied, therefore, that the total disappearance of the Bauddhas in India proper is connected with the influence of the Jains, which may have commenced in the sixth or seventh centuries, and continued till the twelfth.
The inveteracy prevalent between kindred schisms is a sufficient reason for any enmity felt by the Jains towards the Bauddhas, rather than towards the Brahmanical Hindus. There is, indeed, a political leaning to the latter, observable in their recognition of the
Trans. R. A. S., I, 525. To these may be added the inscriptions at Pársvanáth, and a number of inscriptions a Gwalior, copies of which were sent to Mr. FRASER, and which are all dated in the middle of the 15th century.
* [Journal As. Soc. Bengal, VII, 122. Lassen, IV, 239.]
