Historical Facts About Jainism

Author(s): Lala Lajpatrai
Publisher: Jain Associations of India Mumbai

Page 18

SELF-CONTRADICTION.
On the one hand you say that the Jain religion was started by Shri Mahavira about the time Buddha religion came into being, and on the other you say that Shri Mahavira mixed himself up with followers of Shri Parshwa. The effect is that you yourself accept that the Jain religion had started prior to Shri Mahabira and that Shri Parshwa was a historic personage. You have thus fallen into self-contradiction. No value can ordinarily attach to such irresponsible statements, but coming as they do from a person of your repute and political prominence, there is no alternative but to have them rectified and recasted in accordance with established facts.
MISSING JACOBI. In the preface to the second edition of your book you have stated that you have been more or less a compiler rather than an independent historian and that you do not claim to have made original research or investigation. It also appears that you have mostly relied upon Vincent Smith and E. B. Hevell in writing your history. Now Dr. V. Smith, it ought to be remembered here, has been much criticised for want of historic insight.22 It also appears that in writing about the Buddha-Jaina period you have additionally relied on T. W. Rhys Davids who has made a special study of Buddhism but not of Jainism and has a predilectionar
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