Schools and Sects in Jaina Literature

Author(s): Amulyachandra Sen
Publisher: Vishwa Bharati Calcutta

Page 33

SCHOOLS AND SECTS IN JAINA LITERATURE
With regard to the suffering of cold by renouncing clothes and fire, some heretical monks are reported to say that they would put on more clothes and by kindling a fire they would be able to bear the very painful influence of the cold." This may be regarded as applying to the Buddhists for they were certainly not indifferent to unnecessary suffering. We cannot of course be absolutely certain, for Brahmanical ascetics would also light a fire and take clothings for protection from cold.
The doctrine of five skandhas of momentary existence has been ascribed to "some fools." They are said not to admit that the soul is different from, nor identical with the elements, that it is produced from a cause (the elements), nor that it is without a cause, i.e., that it is eternal. This is a clear reference to the Buddhists with their rupa, vedanā, vijñana, samjñā and samskāra skandhas. The existence of a soul in the popular sense of the term apart from the five skandhas was denied by Buddha.
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Earth, water, fire, and air, these four dhātus are said. to combine to form the body according to the Jāṇakas (jñānins)." Harşakula explains Janakas as panditammanya Bauddhah. A variant in the text reads yavare (ca+apare) for Jāṇayā, and this also has been explained as referring to the Buddhists. Jacobi thinks that the word, Janaya, may be derived from yāna 'vehicle,' which the Buddhists used to designate the two sections of the church, viz., the Hinayana and the Mahāyāna. Against this may be pointed out that the Buddhists used the word in respect of themselves only after the great schism arose among them, whereas the present statement appears to be older in age. However all opinion is agreed in understanding this passage to be a reference to the Buddhists.
The Akriyāvādins who deny karman and do not admit that the action of the soul is transmitted to the future moments are understood by Silanka to refer to the Buddhists. The doctrine that everything has but a momentary existence and that there is no continuous identity of existence between a thing as it is now and as it will be in the next moment is one of the Buddhist theories. The Buddhists are included among Akriyāvādins by the Nirgranthas because by not admitting the existence of jiva they were considered to deny karman as well. Jacobi takes this to refer
1 Acar.S. I.vii.2.14.
82 Sut. S. I.i.1.17.
"Süt.S. I.i.1.18. 84 SBE. xlv, p. 238, n.4.
35 Süt.S. I.xii.4