Jain Journal 1974 04

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

Page 67

APRIL, 1974
misrepresentation, made in order to conceal the dependence of Jainism on Buddhism. It is no longer possible to dispute its authenticity with regard to those points which are confirmed by independent statements of other sects, and to assert, for example, the Jaina account of the life of Vardhamana, which agrees with the statements of the Buddhists, proves nothing as regards the age of Jainism because in the late fixing of the canon of the Svetambaras in the sixth century after Christ it may have been drawn from Buddhist works. Such an assertion which, under all circumstances, is a bold one, becomes entirely untenable when it is found that the tradition in question states correctly facts which lie not quite three centuries distant from Vardhamana's time, and that the sect, long before the first century of our era kept strict account of their internal affairs. 37
Unfortunately the testimony to the ancient history of the Jainas, so far as made known by means of inscriptions, terminates here. Interesting as it would be to follow the traces of their communities in the later inscriptions, which become so numerous from the fifth century A.D. onwards and in the description of his travels by Hiuen Tsiang, who found them spread through the whole of India and even beyond its boundaries, it would be apart from our purpose. The documents quoted suffice, however, to confirm the assertion that during the first five centuries after Buddha's death both the statements of Buddhist tradition and real historical sources give evidence to the existence of the Jainas as an important religious community independent of Buddhism, and that there are among the historical sources some which entirely clear away the suspicion that the tradition of the Jainas themselves is intentionally falsified.
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The advantage gained for Indian history from the conclusion that Jainism and Buddhism are two contemporary sects-having arisen in the same district,-is no small one. First, this conclusion, shows that the religious movement of the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. in eastern India must have been a profound one. If not only one, but certainly two, and perhaps more reformers, appeared at the same time, preaching teachers, who opposed the existing circumstances in the same manner, and each of whom gained no small number of the followers for their doctrines, the desire to overthrow the Brahmanical order of things must have been generally and deeply felt. This conclusion shows that the transformation of the religious life in India was not merely the work
37 See Weber's and Barth's opinions quoted above in note 17.