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TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
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preceptor, and him the first and favourite pupil of his master. Yet they tell us that not he, but Sridharma, became head of the community after the Tirthankara's death. When pressed for the reason they are silent and mysterious, evidently averse to disclose the fact that he became the founder of a new and rival sect, which for a long time wholly eclipsed their own. Nor are we to look for any hint of this kind in the writings of the Buddhists, as nothing could be said upon the subject without leading to an avowal that the great Sage himself had had an instructor. In favour of the Jain theory, however, it may be noticed, that Buddha is said to have seen twenty-four of his predecessors, while in the present Kappo he had but four. The Jains, consistently with their theory, inake Mahávíra to have seen twenty-three of his predecessors, all that existed before him in the present age. This part of Buddhism then evidently implies the knowledge of the twentyfour Tirthankars of the Jains. Gautama, however, by the force of natural genius, threw their
* Mahávanso, book I., c. i.
