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Lord Mahâvîra and the Anytirthankars
mentioned by name in the Viy. and it is rather difficult to decide whether any of the dissident views exposed in that work may be pinned on them. A little while ago we already touched upon the notions-suffering and happiness. Mahâvîra's conception of these two of course would likely contend against the Buddhist view. May be the Buddhists are meant where we hear some anyatirthikas say that all beings only experience suffering (VI 103=285b). But we cannot be sure. Neither can we in the case of I 101, section c (= 102a), where we are told that the cohesion of four or five atoms results in an aggregate (khandhattae kajjanti), not in suffering (dukkhattae k.) as the anyatirthikas say. The whole idea and esp. the linking of the terms dukkha and khandha (even if the latter here of course is used in its Jaina connotation) somehow reminds us of the Buddhists. Still, since the text in a way remains curiously enigmatic, we cannot be sure. In the Jina's opinion, as he himself explains in the lines that follow the ones we have just discussed, the notions suffering and action cannot be separated,11 that is own suffering and own action, as is expressly stated in I 21-38 a. Whatever the anyatirthikas may contend, thus we learn from VI 101-284b, nobody in the whole world can show that he has produced an amount of suffering or happines as big as the kernel of a jujube fruit.
11
211
In this connection we must refer to a few other important tenets of Mahâvîra' s lore that over and again crop up in the texts dealing with the rival teachers. To begin with, the expressions sayam-kada dukkha (I 21) and atta-kada dukkha (XVII 42=728a), and a good many others indeed, imply his belief in the existence of a self (which the Buddha rejected, his dialogue with Kassapa, Samyutta Nikâya XII, 17) as well as in the uncheckable character of karmic development. On several occasions the Lord had to explain and uphold these two principles against the anyatirthikas incomprehension and disbelief. The self, he says, is identical with the soul in all such circumstances as may arise from moral conduct, mental functions and the like (XVII 23-723b). To Kalasa Vesiyaputta, a monk of Parsva's creed, he shows that it therefore is the indispensable basis of self-discipline etc. (I 95-99a). On the other hand, the tenet of the uncheckable process of action (E. Leumanns "irrevocabile factum' ), which form of old the Jainas have held in such high esteem that its solemn enunciation was
