Jainism Early Faith of Ashoka

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

Page 55

THE EARLY FAITH OF AŞOKA.
are few and diapersed. To prove the extent of their religious and political power, it will suffice to remark, that the pontiff of the Khartra-gatoha (true branch), one of the many branchea of this faith, has 11,000 clerical disciples scattered over India ; that a aingle community, the Ossi or Oswal (Osga in Marwar), numberg 100,000 families; and that more than half the mercantile wealth of India passes tlırough the hands of the Jain laity." -Tod, under Mewar, vol. i. p. 518.
Col. Tod's contemporary, and superior officer, Gen. Malcolm, gives us an equally striking insight into the active aggressiveness of the Brahmans and the helpless submissiveness of the Jainas in his current narrative :
“Six years ago, the Jains built a handsome 'temple at Ujjain; a Juttee, or priest of high character, arrived from Guzerát to conseorate it, and to place within the shrine the image of their favourite deity (Parswanath); but on the morning of the day fixed for this purpose, after the ceremony had commenced and the Jains had filled the temple expecting the arrival of their idol, a Brahman appeared conveying an oval stono from the river Seepra, which he proclaimed as the emblem of Mahadeva, (and his following) soon drove the unarmed bankera and shopkeepers from their temple, and proclaimed
Mahadeva as the overthrower of Jains.'!-Malcolm, Central India, vol. ii. p. 160. See also Edward Conolly, in J.A.S.B., 1837, p. 834.
In addition to the personal experiences and graphic narratives of Col. Tod, as detailed in his "Rajasthan," a new class of testimony, from indigenous sources, has lately reached us, in the contributions of an independent visitor to the courts of the Chiefs of the Rajput states, forhose careful exami/ nation and reproduction of the monuments existing in sitů ( has been associated with the acquisition of an amount of ancient lore, as preserved among the people themselves, which has not always been accessible under the necessarily reserved attitude of English officials.
I cite M. Rousselet's own words regarding the nature. of the doouments in the possession of the Jainas, and the reiterated charges they advance against the heretical Buddhists :
“Les livres religieux dea Jaïpas, dont la traduction jetterait un grand jour aur les âges reculés de l'histoire de l'Inde, ont été dé