Jaina Law Bhadrabahu Samhita

Author(s): J L Jaini
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

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APPENDIX B.
expenses which are so gallingly involved in proving special custom, the pleading of Hindu Lat means sure victory for the repudiator of Jaina Law. This, to my mind, is the key to understand the career of the claim that the Jainas have a Law of their own and must be governed by it. The Jainas are & numerous and wealthy, though a sporodic community, found in all parts of the world, but located mostly on the Indian continent. The dictum which I am considering crops up in almost every important and well contested Jaina case in all the courts of Native States and British India up to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council of His most Gracious Majesty the King and Emperor of India. Therefore, I do not think any apology is necessary for considering at full length the dictum that Jainas are prima facie governed by Hindu Law. To a certain extent the tacit assumption underlying this doctrine is that Jainas form & part of the non-descript agglomeration of families and races and fragments of families and races who have been born or domiciled in India during many millenniums of history, and that at some point of time or other, the Jainas, like a ripe but rebellious fruit, fell away and detached themselves from the original stock. This is the judicial shibboleth met with in the Law Reports and acted upon as the Burest touchstone of justice where Jaina rights are concerned.
For ages, schoolboys have been taught : "Jainism is a compromise between Hinduism and Buddhism." Thus, by implication, Jainism would be subsequent to both. Even learned text-writers have fallen into and repeated the error, e. g., Golap Chandra Sarkar Sastri, in Hindu Law of adoption (T. L. L. for 1888), edition 1891, at page 452. The same author repeats that Jainas may be called Hindu dissenters, that Jaina Yatis are Digambaras who follow Mahavira, and Sretambaras who follow Parbyanath ; and that Jainism originated in the N.-W. P.