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Lord Mahâvîra
out by severe austerities; every present restraint on body, speech and mind will undo the evil-doings of the past; hence, by expiration and purge of past misdeeds and by not doing fresh misdeeds, nothing accrues for the future; as nothing accrues for the future, misdeeds die away; as misdeeds die away, Ill dies away; as Ill dies away, feelings die away, and as painful feelings die away, all ill will wear out and pass away. This doctrine, they added, commends itself to us and has our approval, and we rejoice in it." Needless to say, in this Sutta the Buddha proceeds immediately to the refutation of the Jaina philosophy.
Having seen, then, that Mahâvîra and Gautama Buddha were in disputably contemporaries, and that the most probable dates for Mahâvîra are 599-527 B.C., we may turn to the question of the date of Parsva. There is no doubt that Parsva preceded Mahâvîra, since the parents of the latter were alredy worshippers of parsva. Also the most reasonable explanation of the nature of Mahâvîra's work is that he was not the investor of a new doctrine but the reformer of a movement already long in existence and derived from Parsva. Four vows had been enjoined on his followers by Parsva, namely; (1) not to destroy life (ahimsa); (2) not to speak untruth; (3) not to steal; and (4) not to own property. To these Mahâvîra added as a fifth the vow of chastity. This was indeed thought of as already implied in the fourth vow of Parsva, but on this point laxity had developed within the order and Mahâvîra deemed it necessary to make the rule explicit as a fifth regulation, additional to the four of his predecessor. 55 Furthermore, it seems that Parsva had allowed his followers to wear an under and an upper garment, but that Mahâvîra went to the extreme position of forbidding his monks to wear any clothing whatsoever. There is a very interesting section (Lecture XXIII) in the Uttaradhyayana56 in which these and other point of difference between the disciples of Parsva and those of Mahâvîra are set forth, and in which it is related that through an amicable discussion between Kesi, leader of the followers of Parsva, and Gautama, foremost disciple of Mahâvîra, the two groups were united in acceptance of the reformations of Mahâvîra. The following quotations will give the essence of the account:
There was a Jina, Parsva by name, an Arhat, worshiped by the people, who was thoroughly enlightened and omniscient, a
