Outlines of Jainism

Author(s): S Gopalan
Publisher: Wiley Eastern Private Limited New Delhi

Page 16

IS JAINISM AN OFFSHOOT OF BUDDHISM?
Jacobi refers to another important point in this connection. He attributes the confusion regarding Jainism to the fact that certain common terms are used in Jainism and Buddhism. The names and appellations used for both were: Jina, Arhat, Mahāvīra Savajña, Sugata, Tathāgata, Siddha, Buddha, Sambuddha, Mukta etc., though only a few of these were used to refer to the 24th Tirthankara of the Jaina tradition, and certain others to the founder of Buddhism.
The inference drawn is that the Jainas borrowed the terms from the Buddhists. Jacobi argues that the inference is unwarranted. If the titles bore a particular significance or acquired some special meaning beyond the one warranted by etymology, they could either have been adopted or rejected. He maintains that it is impossible that a word which had acquired some special meaning (in our context, in the hands of the Buddhists) should have been adopted but used in the original sense by the borrowers (Jainas).11
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Jacobi emphasizes that the only inference that can be drawn is that there was and is at all times a number of honorific adjectives and substantives applicable to persons of exalted virtue; and that these words were used as epithets in their original meaning by all sects but some were selected as titles for their prophets the choice being determined either by the fitness of the word itself or by other circumstances. Thus the only valid conclusion that can be drawn from the common terminology adopted by Jainism and Buddhism is that the Jainas and Buddhists were opposed to each other in regard to adoption of terminology. 12
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Another resemblance between the two religions has also been pointed out in favour of the contention that the Jainas 'imitated' the Buddhists. The followers of both the religions erect statues of their prophets in their temples and offer worship. In this connection it should be noted that the erection of statues was perfectly in accord with the Jaina teaching whereas it was not in keeping with the spirit of Buddhism. So, if at all, the Buddhists might have borrowed the practice from the Jainas and not vice versa.
To be fair to the Buddhists, however, it should be conceded that worshipping of prophets did not have anything to do with their religion in its original form just as Jainism in its pure form did not
11 Jaina Sutras, trans., (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1964), pt. I, Intr., pp. xix-xx
12 Ibid., Intr., pp. xx-xxi