Gaina sutras

Author(s): Hermann Jacobi
Publisher: Clarendon Perss

Page 16

XX
GAINA SUTRAS.
of Gina, and perhaps Sramana, the preference is given to some set of titles by one sect, and to another set by the rival sect; e.g. Buddha, Tathâgata, Sugata, and Sambuddha are common titles of Sâkyamuni, and are only occasionally used as epithets of Mahâvîra. The case is exactly reverse with regard to Vîra and Mahâvîra, the usual titles of Vardhamâna. More marked still is the difference with regard to Tîrthakara, meaning prophet with the Gainas, but founder of an heretical sect with the Bauddhas. What then may be safely inferred from the peculiar choice which either sect made from these epithets and titles? That the Gainas borrowed them from the older Buddhists? I think not. For if these words had once been fixed as titles, or gained some special meaning beyond the one warranted by etymology, they could only have been adopted or rejected. But it was not possible that a word which had acquired some special meaning should have been adopted, but used in the original sense by those who borrowed it from the Buddhists. The most natural construction we can put on the facts is, that there was and is at all times a number of honorific adjectives and substantives applicable to persons of exalted virtue. These words were used as epithets in their original meaning by all sects; but some were selected as titles for their prophets, a choice in which they were directed either by the fitness of the word itself, or by the fact that such or such a word was already appropriated by heterodox sects as a title for their highest authority. Thus the etymological meaning of Tîrthakara is founder of a religion, prophet, and accordingly this title was adopted by the Gainas and other sects, whereas the Buddhists did not adopt it in this sense, but in that of an heterodox or heretical teacher, showing thereby their enmity towards those who used Tirthakara as an honorific title. Again, Buddha is commonly used in about the same sense as mukta, that is a liberated soul, and in this meaning it is still employed in Gaina writings, whilst with the Buddhists the word has become a title of their prophet. The only conclusion which might be forced from these facts is, that the Buddhists at the time when they formed