On Indian Sect of Jainas

Author(s): Jas Burgess
Publisher: Jas Burgess

Page 11

family and founder of the Nirgrantha or Jaina sect. If we follow up this idea, and gather together the different remarks of the Buddhists about the opponents of Buddha, then it is apparent that his identity with Vardhamâna is certain. A number of rules of doctrine are ascribed to him, which are also found among the Jainas, and some events in his life, which we have already found in the accounts of the life of Vardhamâna, are related.
In one place in the oldest part of the Singalese canon, the assertion is put into the mouth of Nigantha Nataputta, that the Kiriyâvâda--the doctrine of activity, separates his system from Buddha's teaching. We shall certainly recognise in this doctrine, the rule of the Kiriyâ, the activity of souls, upon which Jainism places so great importance. [26] Two other rules from the doctrine of souls are quoted in a later work, not canonical: there it is stated, in a collection of false doctrines which Buddha's rivals taught, that Nigantha asserts that cold water was living. Little drops of water contained small souls, large drops, large souls. Therefore he forbade his followers, the use of cold water. It is not difficult, in these curious rules to recognise the Jaina dogma, which asserts the existence of souls, even in the mass of lifeless elements of earth, water, fire, and wind. This also proves, that the Nigantha admitted the classification of souls, so often ridiculed by the Brâhmans, which distinguishes between great and small. This work, like others, ascribes to Nigantha the assertion, that the so-called three danda--the three instruments by which man can cause injury to creatures--thought, word, and body, are separate active causes of sin. The Jaina doctrine agrees also in this case, which always specially represents the three and prescribes for each a special control. [27]
Besides these rules, which perfectly agree with one another, there are still two doctrines of the Nigantha to be referred to which seem to, or really do, contradict the Jainas, namely, it is stated that Nâtaputta demanded from his disciples the taking of four, not as in Vardhamâna's case, of five great vows. Although this difficulty may seem very important at first glance, it is, however, set aside by an oft repeated assertion in the Jaina works. They repeatedly say that Parśva, the twenty-third Jina only recognised four vows, and Vardhamâna added the fifth. The Buddhists have therefore handed down a dogma which Jainism recognises. The question is merely whether they or the Jainas are the more to be trusted. If the latter, and it is accepted that Vardhamâna was merely the reformer of an old religion, then the Buddhists must be taxed with an easily possible confusion between the earlier and later teachers. If, on the other hand, the Jaina accounts of their twenty-third prophet are regarded as mythical, and Vardhamâna is looked upon as the true founder of the sect,--then the doctrine of the four vows must be ascribed to the latter, and we must accept as a fact that he had changed his views on this point. In any case, however, the Buddhist statement speaks for, rather than against, the identity of Nigantha with Jina. [28]
Vardhamâna's system, on the other hand, is quite irreconcilable with Nâtaputta's assertion that virtue as well as sin, happiness as well as unhappiness is unalterably fixed for men by fate, and nothing in their destiny can be altered by the carrying out of the holy law. It is, however, just as irreconcilable with the other Buddhist accounts of the teaching of their opponent; because it is absolutely unimaginable, that the same man, who lays vows upon his followers, the object of which is to avoid sin, could nevertheless make virtue and sin purely dependent upon the disposition of fate, and preach the uselessness of carrying out the law. The accusation that Nâtaputta embraced fatalism must therefore be regarded as an invention and an outcome of sect hatred as well as of the wish to throw discredit on their opponents. [29]