________________
The Fordmakers
275
conquers the mind and the passions and performs austerity correctly, shines with pure soul like a fire in which the oblation has been poured' (IBh 29.17).
It is not Mahâvîra but the mysterious figure of Narada, who in classical Hinduism was to assume the role of a semi-divine intermediary between gods and men and whom the Jain Universal History linked with disproof of the efficacy of sacrifice, who is credited at the beginning of the 'Sayings' with enunciating the central teaching of the importance of non-violence in body, speech and mind (IBh 1). The 'Sayings' also contain what would have been to the Jains antipathetical cosmological views such as those of the wandering mendicant (parivrajaka) Giri who is associated with two claims, that the world and all life came about through a heated egg germinating in the cosmic waters and that the world was the product of the sacrifice, statements which are then followed somewhat uneasily with an enunciation of the standard Jain view of the eternality of the universe (IBh 37).
Particularly interesting is the section of the 'Sayings' which describes how the brahman mendicant Ambada is instructed that mere renunciation of the world is insufficient and that it requires to be put into the framework of correct Jain behaviour (IBh 25). In another later Shvetambara scriptural text, Ambada is described as the leader of a band of ascetics who resolve on suicide because they cannot find anybody to give them alms. Before dying 'ne ascetics pay homage both to Ambada and Mahâvîra and arc reborn as gods. Mahâvîra praises Ambada but emphasises that, despite his great qualities, it is impossible for him to become a Jain monk because his behaviour only approximates to the necessary requirements (Aup pp. 230-50).
This Jainising of a variety of ascetic figures and their doctrines as evinced in the 'Sayings of the Seers' was an attempt by early Jainism to legitimise its own teachings by associating, without fully identifying, them with those whom the common tradition of the Ganges basin had come to regard as unquestionably great and enlightened men of the past. The Fordmakers And The Ford
In western-style histories of religions, Mahâvîra is generally treated as being the founder of Jainism in the same way as Jesus
