Jainism in North India

Author(s): Chimanlal J Shah
Publisher: Longmans Green and Compny London

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INTRODUCTION (for Jina and Buddha bear the same meaning according to both Buddhists and Jainas) "1 But the fact is that Jina means "the Conqueror” and Buddha "the Knower."
In his paper read at a meeting of the Royal Asiatic Society Mr Colebrooke has said: “It is certainly probable, as remarked by Dr Hamilton and Major Delamaine, that the Gautama of the Jainas and of the Buddhas is the same personage; and this leads to the further surmise that both these sects are branches of 'one stock. According to the Jainas, one of Mahāvīra's eleven disciples left spiritual successors; that is, the entire succession of Jaina priests is derived from one individual, Sudharma Svāmi. Two only out of eleven survived Mahāvīra-viz. Indrabhūti and Sudharma : the first, identified with Gautama Svāmī, has no spiritual successor in the Jaina sect. The proper inference seems to be that the followers of this surviving disciple are not of the sect of Jina, rather that there have been none. Gautama's followers constitute the sect of Buddha, with tenets in many respects analogous to those of the Jainas, or followers of Sudharma, but with a mythology or fabulous history of deified saints quite different." 2
Such hurried conclusions and identifications on both sides on grounds of chance similarity of certain names or dogmas are not only not history but not logic ether. In the words of Dr Jacobi such an identification " can only be maintained on the principles of Fluellen's logic: there is a river in Macedon : and there is also, moreover, a river at Monmouth. It is called Wye at Monmouth; but it is out of my prains what is the name of the other river. But 'tis all one : 'tis alike as my fingers is to my fingers, and there is salmons in both."" 3
Even a distinguished scholar like Dr Hopkins connected Malāvīra exclusively with “idolatry, demonology and man-riorship." “Of all the great religious sects of India," says the same scholar in connection with Jainism, “that of Nātaputta is perhaps the least interesting, and has apparently the least excuse for being." 4 Neither are the final remarks of the learned Orientalist in any sense toned down. “A religion in which the chief points insisted upon are," he concludes, " that one should deny God, worship man and nourish Termin has indeed no right to exist, nor has it bad as a system
1 Thomas (E ), Jainism or the Carly Farth of Asoka, p 6. : Colebrookc, Miscellancous Essays, in, pp 313, 376. * Jacobi, 1.4, ,p 162 • Hopkins, Rchgions of India, p 296
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