Jainism Early Faith of Ashoka

Author(s): Edward Thomas
Publisher: Trubner and Company London

Page 47

. THE EARLY FAITH OF AŞOKA.
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a similar conclusion with Colebrooke as to the relative positions of Jainism and Buddhism, in reference to their common source and the more recent innovations and arrogant assumptions of the latter creed. He sums up his remarks in the subjoined passage:
“There are, however, yet one or two other points in the accounts the Jaina give ua, which seem to have a historic bearing. The first ia the relation said to have subsiated between the last Buddha and the last Tirthankara, the Jains making Mahávíra Gautama's preceptor, and him the favourite pupil of his master. .... In favour of the Jain theory (of priority), however, it may be noticed, that Buddha is aaid to have seen 24 of hia predeceaaors (Mahávanso, I. c. i.), while in the present Kappo he had but four. The Jains, consistently with their theory, make Mahávíra to have seen 23 of his predecessors, all that existed before him in the present age. This part of Buddhism evidently implies the knowledge of the 24 Tírthankaras of the Jaina. Gautama, however, by the force of natural genius, threw their system entirely into the shade, till the waning light of Buddhiam permitted its fainter radiance to re-appear on the western horizon."!_Kalpa Sútra, London, 1848, p. xii.
Dr. Stevenson was peculiarly competent to express an opinion on this and collateral questions, as he had made the “ante-Brahmanical worship of the Hindus”? a subject of his especial study, during his lengthened career, as a missionary in the Dekhan, in direct association with the people of the land. Among other matters bearing upon Jainism, he gives an instructive account of the process of making a god, as traced in the instance of VIỆTAL or VITHOBA, commencing with the “rough unhewn stone of a pyramidical or triangular shape,"3 which formed the centre of the druidical this Book was written and pnblicly read in the currency of the 93rd year.” Hence, taking Mahávíra's eriod at 503 B.C., its date is fixed at "454 A.D. and its publication at 466 A.D."-Stevenson's Kalpa Sutra, p. 95. Colebrooke's Essays, vol. ii. p. 193.
1 After writing the above I found my conclusion anticipated by Mr. Colebrooke, and I am happy that it now goes abroad with the suffrage of so learned an Orientalist-Trans. R.A.S. Vol. I. p. 522."
2 J.R.A.S. Vol. V. pp. 189, 264; Vol. VI. p. 239; Vol. VIII. p. 330. See also J.A.S. Bengal, articles on cognate subjects, vol. iii. (1834), p. 495; vol. vi.
3 J.R.A.S. (1839), Vol. V. p. 193 et seq. Among other questions adverted to, Dr. Stevenson remarks: -" Vettal is
the Dekhan, said to be an Avatar of
p. 498.