Lecture On Jainism

Author(s): Lala Banarasidas
Publisher: Anuvrat Samiti

Page 15

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place a blessed one, because we have now and here an opportunity to exchange thoughts on our respective faiths.
Gentlemen, I have said above that a great misunderstanding has arisen as to our religion, and that many blemishes and slurs have been cast upon it. Now I shall briefly try to remove some of these misunderstandings and to wash away these blemishes and slurs. First as to our antiquity. Jainism never originated after Shankaracharya. Those writers like Lethbridge and Mountstuart Elphinstone, who say that on the decline of Buddhism, Jainism originated in the 6th century and died in the 12th, though some of the Jains are still found, greatly err. They show their ignorance not only of Jain Shastras, but also of the sacred Texts of the Hindus and the Buddhists. These writers ought to know that Shankaracharya himself held debate with the Jains at a place near Ujjain, as is recorded by Madhava and Ananda Giri in their Shankar-Dig-Vijaya, and by Sadananda in his Shanka-Vijaya-Sara. Nay, Shankar has himself recorded that Jainism existed at a very early date, for in his Bhashya on the Vedanta Sutras of Badarayana, he that Sutras 33-36 of 2nd Pada of 2nd Adhyaya apply to the Jains. Ramanuja, another Bhashyakara of the Shariraka Mimamsa of Badarayana, is also of the same opinion in his Shri-bhashya.
says
An tiquity of the Jains.
Jainism never originat
en after Shankaracharya.
Now when Shankaracharya thus speaks of the Jains, how could they come into existence after him?