________________
108 :
śramaņa, Vol 59, No. 4/October-December 2008
to the first mental act in a new embryonic germ-cell. The last conscious act dies away; another conscious act arises in a new organism. This is called rebirth. In rebirth there is transmigration of character from last conscious act in one life to first conscious act in the next life. Explaining it, Dr. Rhys Davids has rightly opined that Buddha did not teach transmigration of souls. “What he did teach would be better summarized as transmigration of character."13
3. The founder of the faith, Gautama Buddha, never claimed to have supernatural powers. In fact, Buddha was the founder of the doctrine of Dependent Origination (pratitya-samutpādavāda) and he, therefore, ruled out the possibility of any kind of miraculous happenings.14
However, later on, Tantrism found its way into Buddhist theology's Apparently indicating about it, the author has claimed that the Yatis possessed the so-called super-natural powers.
4. The author states that he found the Baniyās (business class) to be the followers. However, it is a well known justified fact that all along the Baniyās have mostly been the followers of Jainism and not Buddhism, living in several parts of India, including Marwar (Jodhpur), even during the Mughal days. It, therefore, appears that the author mistakenly considered them to be the followers of Buddhism.
5. The writer has wrongly termed the sect leading married and material life as ‘Mahā-ātmā. It should actually be 'Mahāyāna' and not 'Mahā-ātmā'. Perhaps this mistake was due to the language barrier the author must have faced. It may be noted that the Mahāyāna emphasizes the monk's life of householder, and Hīnayāna emphasizes the life of renunciation.
6. Nowhere do we come across Lunganisor Pujärisin Buddhist history. As far as worshipping is concerned, it was the Mahāyāna sect who regarded the Buddha as the transcendental, eternal and absolute, and, thereupon, worshiped him.
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
