Jainism in North India

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

Page 40

JAINISM BEFORE MAHAVIRA Coming to modern scholars we find that there is a general unanimity about the historical character of Pārsva's life. Just to mention a few among the older generation of Sanskrit scholars in' the West, we find that Colebrooke, 1 Stevenson and Edward Thomas S strongly believed that Jainism was older than both Nattaputta and Sākyaputta. "I take Pārsvanātha," says Colebrooke, "to have been the founder of the sect of the Jainas, which was confirmed and thoroughly established by Mahāvīra and his disciple Sudharma; by whom, and by his followers, both Mahāvira and his predecessor, Pārsvanātha, have been venerated as deified saints (Jinas), and are So worshipped by the Jainas of this day." 4
On the other side some German scholars, like Buhler 5 and Jacobi,& refuted the arguments put forward by H. H. Wilson,? Lassen 8 and others. These particulars," says Jacobi, "about the religion of the Jainas previous to the reform of Mahāvīra are so matter-of-fact like, that it is impossible to deny that they may have been handed down by a trustworthy tradition. Hence we must infer that the Nirgranthas already existed previous to Mahävira-- a result which we shall render more evident in the sequel by collateral proofs." 9
Coming to our own day we have three of the greatest writers on Indian philosophy-Drs Belvalkar, 10 Dasgupta 17 and Radhakrishnan 12__and historians and scholars like Charpentier, 13 Guérinot, 14 Mazumdar, 15 Frazer, 16 Elliot, 27 Poussin 18 and others, who hold the same opinion. "Jainism has suffered," observes Belvalkar, "in estimation as an ethical and metaphysical system by being deemed as more or less contemporaneous in origin with the other more evolved philosophical systems like the Sankhya, Vedānta and Buddhism. The fact is that Mahāvīra inherited the ontology of his system from a remoter ancestry, and he probably did little more than transmit it unchanged to succeeding generations.” 18 ,
In his learned preface to the Uttarādhyayana Dr Charpentier observes : “We ought also to remember both that the Jaina * Colebrooke, op. cit, u, p 317.
: Sterenson (Res ), op and loc al. - Thomas (Edward), op cit, PG
4 Colebrooke, op. and loc cit. * Bühler, The Indian Sect of the Jainas, p 32 Jacobi, SBE, ,P XXI. • Wilson, op cit, i, 334
# Lassen, 1.4,11, 107 Jacobi, I.A , L , P 180.
10 Belvalkar. The Brahma-Sutras, p. 106 1 Dasgupta, op cit, p. 178
1: Radhakrishnan, op cit, p 281. I Charpentier, CH., i, p 153
Gucrot, BibliograpInc Jaina, Int .p vi 13 Mazumdar, op cit, pp 262 IT
it Frazer, Literary History of India, p 128. 17 Elliot, Hinduism and Buddhism, , p 110 18 Poussin, The Way to Nirvana p. 67 19 Belvalkar, op cit, p. 107.
X1