Jainism

Author(s): N R Guseva
Publisher: Sindu Publications P L

Page 62

JAINISM
necessary (to this day the Jain ascetics spend 12 years as devotees for ‘securing perfection'). In the early Buddhism, worship of statues and other portrayals of preachers of religion was censured. In Jainism, such worship was always taken for granted.
The names of Buddha's pupils do not coincide with those of Mahavir. The two died at different times and at different places.?
Moreover, the word 'Tirthankar' (boatman across the ocean of existence), used by the Jains as the most venerable epithet for their ancient preachers of religion, signifies in Buddhism founders of heretics. The fact that amongst both Buddhists and jains such epithets as buddha, sarvajnya (all-knowing), mukta (liberated), jeena (conqueror) etc. were prevalent, only shows that these attributes, applied to religious preachers, were widespread. Besides, Jacobi observes that Buddhists used one group of such attributes, while Jains preferred other ones.
Many scholars (Colebrooke, Radhakrishnan, etc.) attempt to show that Jainism existed before Buddhism. Colebrooke justifies his viewpoint by saying that the teaching of Jains about the existence of soul in each living being is traced back to primitive animism.
Jacobi considers that although the Buddhist and Jain Com munities arose and developed independently of each other, they borrowed much from Brahmin ascetics, not only from philosophy and moral prescriptions, but also from the custom of using the same obligatory things. It is true, he makes a reservation there viz., that the author of the Sanskrit treatise Baudhayana' in which all the prescriptions to the ascetics are collected, lived after Buddha (and this also means after Mahavir).
In order to express her disagreement with the viewpoint that the Brahmanic ascetics served as an example for the creation of Jain monastic community, and to express her own reflections in this context, the writer of the present book had already cited all the proofs which were accessible to her.
7. H. Jacobi, Jaina Sutras, Part I.
8. H. T. Colebrooke, Miscellaneous Essays, Vol. II, p. 276; S. Radha krishnan, Indian Philosophy, Vol. I, Moscow 1956, p. 245.
9. H. Jacobi, op. cit., Part I, Introduction, pp. XXV, XXX, XXXIV, XXXV, XXXIX.