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JAINA BIBLIOGRAPHY
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A. L. BASHAM-History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas, London, 1951.
Foreword by Dr. L.D. BARNET-Dissent from the Vedic systems of sacrifice and Brahmanic retualism arose and created new preachers. Among the aristocratic clans of the North two noblemen created great churches; they were Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, and Mahāvira Vardhamāna, whom the Jains revere as their twenty-fourth Tirthankara. Besides these the Ājivikas also played a part of some importance.
Preface-refutation of HOERNLE's theory of taking Ājivika as Digambara Jain.
P. 4. The Ājivikas asceticism often terminated, like that of the Jainas, in death by starvation.
P. 6. The three heterodox sects, Buddhism, Jainism and Ajīvikism had much in common, all three rejected the sacrificial polytheism of the Aryans and the monistic theories of the Upanisadic mystics; they represent a recognition of the rule of natural law in the universe like that of their approximate contemporaries, the natural philosophers of Gonia. The system of the Ājivikas was based on the principle of Niyati as the only determining factor in the universe.
P. 8. Makhali Gosāla, before his association with Mahāvira, was a mankha (a bard).
Pp. 11, 16. Nigantha Nätaputta and his doctrine as contained in the Sâmaññaphala sutta of the Digha Nikāya : "A nigantha is surrounded by the barrier of fourfold restraint How is he surrounded? He practises restraint with regard to water, he avoids all sin, by avoiding sin his sins are washed away, and he is filled with the sense of all sins avoided-So surrounded by the barrier of fourfold restraint his mind is perfected, controlled, and firm.
P. 17. The teaching ascribed to Nigantha Nātaputta is very obscure, but as JACOBI has pointed out, while it is not an accurate description of the Jaina creed it contains nothing alien to it. Nigantha identified with Vardhamana Mahävira, the twenty-fourth Tirthankara of Jainism.
P. 18. According to Mahābodhi Jataka (V), King Brahmadatta of Benares had among others a Khattavijjavädi (Nigantha) Councillor; Nigantha, in fact the apostle of ahimsa, is here the teacher of a Macchivellian doctrine, resembling the antinomianism of Purana as described in the Sutta passage (quoted above).
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