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APPENDIX.
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inscriptions prove the independent existence of the sect of the Jainas even during the first five centuries after Buddha's death, and among the inscriptions are some which clear the Jaina tradition not only from the suspicion of fraud but bear powerful witness to its honesty."
We need only refer to the authority of MajorGeneral J. G. R. Forlong, F. R. S. E., F. R. A. S., M. A. I., etc., a learned scholar and writer, who points out, as the result of over seventeen years' study and research (see Short Studies in the Science of Comparative Religions, pages 243-4):
" All Upper, Western, North Central India was then--say 1,500 to 800 B. C. and, indeed, from unknown times-ruled by Turanians, conveniently called Dravids, and given to tree, serpent, and phalik worship .... but there also then existed throughout apper India an ancient and highly organized religion, philosophikal, ethikal and severely ascetikal, viz., Jainism, out of which clearly developed the early ascetikal features of Brahmanism and Buddhism.
" Long before Aryans reached the Ganges, or even the Sarasvati, Jainas had been taught by some twenty two prominent Bodhas, saints or Tirthamkaras, prior to the historical 23rd Bodha Parsva of the 8th or 9th century B. C., and he knew of all his predecessors pious Rishis living at long intervals of time; and of several scriptures even then known as Purvas or Puranas, that is, ancient,' which had been handed down for ages in the memory of recognised anchorites, Vana prasthas or forest recluses. This was more especially a Jaina Order, severely enforced by all their ‘Bodhas' and particularly in the 6th Century B. C. by the 24th and last, Maha Vira of 598-520 B. C. This ascetik Order continued in Brahamanism and Buddhism throughout distant Baktria and Dacia, as seen in our Study I. and S. Books E., Vols. XXII. and XLV."
The above expressions of opinion of non-Jaina writers, while not always recognising the historicity of the first twenty-two Tirthamkaras of Jainism, fully establish the fact that it has prevailed in the world for at least 2,800 years, that is to say, from a period of three hundred years
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