Prolegomena to Prakritica et Jainica

Author(s): Satyaranjan Banerjee
Publisher: Asiatic Society

Page 61

PROLEGOMENA TO PRAKRITICA et JAINICA
out some more characteristics of such primitive or popular thinking (“Volksglaube"). It is very well imaginable that, apart from this basis, Mahāvīra made use of the conceptions of other systems39, though his is not dependent on other systems we know of. On the other hand it is probable that the Jains influenced the Yoga as taught by Patanjali, but in subordinate items only. There is no relation to the Vaiseșika system assumed by Jacobi, though it shares its atomistic character with that of the Jains. Since the similarity between both of them cannot possibly be ignored, the Jains maintained that a heretical named Chaluya Rohagutta was the inventor of the Vaišeşika system. For scholars42 take the word Chaluya as an illusion to the six(cha) categories in the "owl”(uluya). philosophy, i.e. the teaching of the Kāņādas or "crow. eaters”, i.e. "owls.” The doctrine imputed to Rohagutta is that he undertook to add a third category (rāsī) called nojiva, to the natural and traditional ones, viz. jiva and ajīva. It seems impossible to prove that the Vaiseşika took its origin from that rather funny doctrine. Rohagutta was defeated dialectically by 144 items the detailed list of which, being based on the Vaišeşika, turns out to be a secondary addition.
$11. It is in this connexion that, last not least, we wish to refer to a subject common to both Jainism and Hinduism, without being entitled to pretend that the latter
39. "Mahāvīra probably borrowed much more from other sects
than we shall ever be able to prove", Jacobi SBE 45, p.
XXXII. 40. A conjecture that Umāsvāti in T. 7, 5ff. was influenced by
the Yogasutra was not maintained by Jacobi SPWA 1930, p. 607. Some contact between both of them is stated by
him ad. T. 2, 52 and 9, 46. 41. This was the 6th heresy of the 7 known in tradition ($ 17). 42. Jacobi (following Weber) Kalpasūtra p. 119, SBE 45, XXXV
ff., ad T, 9. Most important Leumann, Ind. Stud. 17, p. 121ff.