________________
MAY, 1896.]
that they are of Buddhist origin is due to Mr. W. Simpson, J. R. A. S. Vol. XIII. p. 205. It is difficult, however, to see how figures of Buddha could have come to be regarded as the tombs of Patriarchs and Muhammadan heroes. Such tombs are not likely to present signs of antiquity, as they are always kept in repair.
D. G. B. in P. N. and Q. 1883.
NOTES AND QUERIES.
SOME MODERN JAIN SECTSHINDU ANTIPATHY TO JAINS.1 "BETTER jump down a well than pass a mundéband," said a Kasmiri Pandit. The mundébands are a sect of Jain ascetics, and are to be found in great force in a house on the north side of the Chandni Chauk at Delhi. Ibbetson, Outlines of Panjab Ethnography, § 255 ff., footnote to p. 130, quoting the Bombay Census Report, says: In Rajputânâ considerable animosity prevails between the Hindus and the Jains. There is a saying, 'it is better to jump into a well than to pass a Jain ascetic on the
BOOK-NOTICE.
HARITA'S DHARMASUTRA.1
WHEN, in 1889, I put before the Eighth Congress of Orientalists at Stockholm my Collection of Legal Quotations" from Harita's Dharmasastra, I did not venture to hope that a complete copy of that important work might turn up at any time. It was this very consideration which caused me to make a beginning towards collecting the numerous and important, fragments of that work, which are preserved in the quotations of medieval and modern writers on Sanskrit law. I am extremely glad to be able to announce to the Members of the Tenth Congress, now assembled, that after all as. has been lately discovered in India of saskrit composition apparently identical with the genuine old work of
Harita.
The first notice concerning the MS. in question has been given in Pandit Vaman Sastri Islamapurkar's Preface to the first volume of his edition of the Pardiara Dharma Samhita with Sayana's Commentary (1893, Bombay Sanskrit Series). The Pandit is quite right in stating that this MS., which he has secured from Nasik, is a fresh discovery, o mention having been made of it either by orientista or antiquarians. It is true that several riti compositions attributed to the
147
road; and another, 'a Hindu had better be overtaken by a wild elephant than take refuge in a Jain temple,' and 'he may not run through the shadow of it even to escape a tiger."" He says, however, that this hatred is merely sectarian, and that the Jains are in effect Hindus. At p. 131, § 256, he says:-"They carry the reverence for animal life to an absurd extent: many of these ascetics wear a cloth over their mouths, lest they should inhale an insect or other living thing." Those who do this are the mundebands. At p. 132, § 257, he says:-"A more modern sect is the Dhûndiâs, so called because its followers were persecuted by the orthodox, and compelled to take refuge in ruins (dhund)." This word dhúnd is said to be Gujarâtî, but I believe it to be theth bhasha (real speech of the people) as I have heard it in Ambâlâ. As far as I have gone in the inquiry, I should be inclined to think that the
mundeband custom existed anterior to the rise of the Dhandîâ sect.
M. MILLETT in P. N. and Q. 1883.
sage Harita bave been printed in India, and that a number of others are extant in MSS., and have been noticed in the published catalogues of Sanskrit MSS. But none of these works, as far as I am aware, shews the least resemblance to the Dharmasastra of Harita. Thus the printed Vriddha Harita Samhitd is a lengthy sectarian production, in which Vaishnava rites and the Avataras of Vishnu are constantly referred to. The other Smritis which go by the name of Harita are mostly brief and insignificant tracts, in which few, if any, of the numerous texts attributed to Hârîta by the standard writers on law are to be met with. All these works are entirely put in the shade by the present copy of the Dharmabåstra of Hârita, which may be reckoned among the most important recent finds in the field of ancient Sanskrit legal literature.
Though the merit of the discovery belongs to Pandit Islâmapurkar, European scholars would have been unable to test, and make use of, his discovery, unless Prof. Bühler had applied to him for the loan of the MS. This request was readily complied with, and as Prof. Bühler has kindly lent me both the MS. itself and a transcript made by himself of some important portions of it, I am in a position to offer the
1 [Ibbetson, § 55a, gives "Munhband (Caste No. 220): the Jain ascetic who hangs his cloth over his mouth."-ED.]
1 Translated, with modifications and additions, from the Actes du X. Congrès International des Orientalistes.
