On Indian Sect of Jainas

Author(s): Jas Burgess
Publisher: Jas Burgess

Page 25

female orders among the Svetâmbara consist entirely of virgin widows, whose husbands have died in childhood, before the beginning of their life together. It is not necessary to look upon the admission of nuns among the Svetâmbara as an imitation of Buddhist teaching, as women were received into some of the old Brahmanical orders; see my note to Manu, VIII, 363, (Sac. Bks. of the East, Vol. XXV, p. 317). Among the Digambaras, exclusion of women was demanded from causes not far to seek. They give as their reason for it, the doctrine that women are not capable of attaining Nirvâņa; see Peterson, Second Report, in Jour. Bom. Br. R. As. Soc. Vol. XVII, p. 84.
Footnote 6: The titles Siddha, Buddha and Mukta are certainly borrowed by both sects from the terminology of the Brâhmaņs, which they used, even in olden times, to describe those saved during their lifetimes and used in the Saivite doctrine to describe a consecrated one who is on the way to redemption. An Arhat, among the Brâhmans, is a man distinguished for his knowledge and pious life (comp. for example Apastamba, Dharmasútra. I, 13, 13; II, 10, 1.) and this idea is so near that of the Buddhists and the Jainas that it may well be looked upon as the foundation of the latter. The meaning of Tîrthakara "prophet, founder of religion", is derived from the Brahmanic use of tîrtha in the sense of "doctrine". Comp. also H. Jacobi's Article on the Title of Buddha and Jina, Sac. Books of the East. Vol. XXII, pp. xix, xx.
Footnote 7: A Sâgara or Sâgaropamâ of years is == 100,000,000,000,000 Palya or Palyopama. A Palya is a period in which a well, of one or, according to some, a hundred yojana, i.e. of one or a hundred geographical square miles, stuffed full of fine hairs, can be emptied, if one hair is pulled out every hundred years: Wilson, Select. Works, Vol. I, p. 309; Colebrooke, Essays, Vol. II, p. 194. ed. Cowell.
Footnote 8: For the list of these Jinas, see below.
Footnote 9: More complete representations are to be found in Colebrooke's Misc. Essays. Vol. I, pp. 404, 413, with Cowell's Appendix p. 444-452; Vol. II, pp. 194, 196, 198-201; H. H. Wilson's Select Works, Vol. I, pp. 297-302, 305-317; J. Stevenson, Kalpasútra, pp. xix-xxv; A. Barth, Religions de l'Inde, pp. 84-91.
Footnote 10: On the Jaina Paradise see below. Dr. Bühler seems here to have confounded the Aloka or Non-world, 'the space where only things without life are found', with the heaven of the Siddhas, but these are living beings who have crossed the boundary
Footnote 11: The Digambara sect, at least in southern India, do not seem to be all quite so punctiliously careful in this as the Svetambara of western India.--Ed.
Footnote 12: On the five great vows see the Achârânga Sútra, II, 15: S.B.E. Vol. XXII, pp. 202210. The Sanskrit terms of the Jains are: 1. ahissá, 2. sûnrita, 3. asteya, 4. brahmâchârya, 5. aparigraha; those of the Brahmanical ascetics: 1. ahimsa, 2. satya, 3. asteya, 4. brahmâcharya, 5. tyâga.
Footnote 13: With reference to asceticism, comp. Leumann, Aupapâtika Sútra $ 30. The death of the wise ones by starvation is described, Weber, Bhagavatî Sûtra, II, 266-267; Hoernle Upåsakadaśa Sútra, pp. 44-62; Achârânga Sútra, in S.B.E. Vol. XXII, pp. 70-73. Among the