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Lord Mahavira Buddha is less compromising with the creeds of his contemporaries, because he started with the conviction that he had personally discovered something new for humanity. But Mahâvîra was more accommodating and compromising and quite willing to understand the point of view of others, primarily because he was preaching an earlier religion, may be for a slightly different order of monks and laymen. "It is evident,” as Jacobi has remarked, "that both Mahấvîra and Buddha have made use of the interest and support of their families to propagate their Order. Their prevalence over other rivals was certainly due in some degree to their connection with the chief families of the country." Buddha had a longer lease of life: he lived for full eighty years; while Mahâvîra lived only 72 years. The middle path of Buddha struck a note of novelty and inspired so much enthusiasm among his new followers that its influence spread far and wide. Mahâvîra, however, had to preach both to old and new followers, and obviously he must have been guided by a spirit of compromise : the question of new recruits was not with him as urgent as it was with Buddha. There is evidence, further confirmed by close similarity between Jaina and Buddhist monastic rules, that Buddha did try the Nirgrantha way of living for a while, obviously the one preached long before by Parshvanatha. As observed by Jacobi "Niganthas (Nirgranthas), now better known under the name of Jainas or Arhatas, already existed as an important sect at the time when the Buddhist church was being founded." The Pali canon refers to Mahâvîra as Niggantha Nataputta. Both Mahâvîra and Buddha thus started their careers with the same capital of Sramanic ideology, but differed later in details, and so also their followers with changing times and places, The subsequent history of Jainism and Buddhism, the former confining itself primarily to India but still surviving as a living institution and the latter spreading with remarkable zeal practically all over the Eastern hemisphere but losing its bearings in the very land of its birth, has its seeds to be sought in their earlier beginnings outlined above. It is absolutely necessary that the doctrines of Buddha and Mahâvîra be studied in more detail than is done ordinarily by the educated man.
The history of the Jaina Church has many a bright spot here and there. After Mahâvîra the Church was led by a series of eminent monks and received patronage from kings like Srenika
