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The origin of the Jaina tradition has been generally attributed in critical scholarship to a reforming or protestant movement from within the earliest Vedic tradition Hermann Jacobi has, thus, convincingly shown by a detailed comparison of the rules of discipline among the Jaina, Buddhist and Brahmanıcal ascetics that an unmistakable pervasive similarity is noticeable among them 2 It is, in fact, impossible to doubt that these rules could not be wholly independent Whether one or more of these streams have borrowed from the rest or all of them derive these rules from a different common source, remains to some extent a speculative matter Jacobi has already argued quite reasonably that the Jainas could not have borrowed from the Buddhists who represented a chronologically junior sect His argument, however, that the common source could only be the Brahmanical regulations, is not so convincing I had argued nearly thirty years ago that we ought to accept the existence of an ascetic tradition in India prior to the sixth century BC, a tradition which was contemporary with but independent of the Vedic tradition 8 Since then several scholars have tended to identify this hypothetical non-Vedic ascetic tradition with the Jaina tradition prior to Mahāvīra and Pārsva 4 The resultant is only a reaffirmation of Jaina traditional views under the aegis of supposedly historical scholarship Personally I would like to sound a note of caution from the point of view of critical history I have no doubt that the Jaina tradition goes beyond Pārsva but how far and in what shape, remains wholly speculative Vedic texts do refer to ascetics who appeai to have been different from the usual seers and sages but we canuot identify them further We must remember that even the Sānkhya tradition claims to go back to Kapıla in the primeval ages
The impoitant thing to note in this context is that the Vedic tradition accepted asceticism only gradually and with some reluctance Although Sankrācārya has argued that Vedic Dharma or ethos is twofold, Pravrtti-laksana and Nirstti-laksana, a careful and detailed examination of Vedic literature would show that the doctrines of Karman, Samsāra and Sannyāsa are only exceptionally indicated in that literature, a fact which was noticed first of
