Historical Facts About Jainism

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

Page 82

(such as e.g. subsists now between the several Gakkhas of the Swetambaras) ripened into division, and in the end brought about the great schism." P. XXI & XXII ibid.
(iv) “The records in the Buddhists Canon are not repugnant to our views about the existance of the Niganthas before Nataputta ; for the Niganthas inust have been an important sect at the time when Buddhism took its rise. This may be inferred from the fact that they are so frequently inentioned in the Pitakas as opponents or converts of Buddha and his disciples; and as it is nowlere said or even merely implied thai the Nig anthas were a newly-foundech sect, we inay conclude that they had already existed a considerable time before the advent of the Buddha. This conclusion is supported by another fact. Makkhali Gosala, a contemporary of Buddha and Mahavira, divided mankind into six classes. Of these, according to Buddhaghosa, the third class contains the Niganthas. Gosala probably would not have ranked them as a seperate, i.e. fundamental subdivision of mankind, if they had only recently come into existence. He inust have looked upon them as a very important, and at the same time, an old sect, in the same way in which, in my opinion, the early Buddhists looked upon them. As a last argument in favour of my theory I may mention that in the Magghima Nikaya 35, a disputation between the Buddha and Sakkaka, the son of a Nigantha,