Jain Journal 1974 04

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 59

APRIL, 1974
In one place in the oldest part of the Singhalese canon, the assertion is put into the mouth of Nigantha Nataputta, that the Kiriyāvāda-the doctrine of activity, separates his system from Buddha's teaching. We shall certainly recognise in this doctrine, the rule of the Kiriya, the activity of souls, upon which Jainism places so great importance.21 Two other rules from the doctrine of souls are quoted in a later work, not canonical: there it is stated, in a collection of false doctrine which Buddha's rivals taught, that Nigantha asserts that cold water was living. Little drops of water contained small souls, large drops, large souls. Therefore he forbade his followers, the use of cold water. It is not difficult, in these curious rules to recognise the Jaina dogma, which asserts the existence of souls, even in the mass of lifeless elements of earth, water, fire and wind. This also proves, that Nigantha admitted the classification of souls, so often ridiculed by the Brahmans, which distinguishes between great and small. This work, like others, ascribes to Nigantha the assertion, that the so called three danda-the three instruments by which man can cause injury to creatures-thought, word, and body, are separate active causes of sin. The Jaina doctrine agrees also, in this case, which always specially represents the three and prescribes for each a special control. 22
Besides these rules, which perfectly agree with one another, there are still two doctrines of the Nigantha to be referred to, which seem to, or really do, contradict the Jainas; namely, it is stated that Nataputta demanded from his disciples the taking of four not as in Vardhamana's case, of five great vows. Although this difficulty may seem very important at first glance, it is, however, set aside by an oft-repeated assertion in the Jaina works. They repeatedly say that Parsva, the twenty-third Jina only recognised four vows, and Vardhmana added the fifth. The Buddhists have therefore handed down a dogma which Jainism recognises. The question is merely whether they or the Jainas are the more to be trusted. If the latter, and it is accepted that Vardhmana was merely the reformer of an old religion, then the Buddhists must be taxed with an easily possible confusion between the earlier and later teachers. If, on the other hand, the Jaina accounts of their twenty-third prophet are regarded as mythical, and Vardhamana is looked upon as the true founder of the sect, then the doctrine of the four vows must be ascribed to the latter, and we must accept that he had changed his views on this point.
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21 Jacobi, Zeitschrift der Deutsch. Morg. Ges., Bd. XXXIV, S. 187; Ind. Ant., Vol. IX, p. 159.
Jacobi, Ind. Ant., Vol. IX, p. 159.
22