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: This Gątha of the Darshana Sara is cited as an authority by Swami Atma Ram, a Svetambara Sadhoo, in his. Ajnana Timira Bhashkara and other works and by Pandit Shiva Chandra, a Digambara, in his PrashnaUttara Dipika, and by almost all other living Pandits of the day as an authority for the view that Buddha was originally a Jain monk, who being corrupt in thought, recommended the use of flesh, and having assumed red garments, started a religion of his own.
Thus you will see, gentlemen, that in Brahmanical writings the Jains are nowhere spoken of as a branch of the Buddhists even as early as when Badarayana wrote, and that was the time when Buddha himself lived; that in Buddhist scriptures the Jains are spoken of as contemporary of Buddha or as a sect older thạn the newly arisen Bauddhas; and that according to Jain Shastras Buddha was a Jain monk, a disciple of. Pihitashrava. How are the Jains to be regarded as an offshoot of the Buddhists then ? Have not Weber, Wilson, and others done us great injustice in calling us an offshoot of the Buddhists? Certainly they have. We, Jains, can, however, respectfully make allowance for them, for their conclusions were due to haste. They are, after all, great scholars, and we should forget what they have said, though by their innocent but hasty opinions we have generally come to be regarded as a branch of the Buddhists. They never studied the antiquity of Jainism in the light of Jain, Buddhist and Brahmanical Texts.
