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(iii) It is not improbable, again, that the grammarian Pāņiņi in his sūtra (II.1.70) kumāraḥ śramaņādibhiḥ had the followers of Pārśva in view. Kumāraśramana or Kumāraputta is used as an appellation of the followers of Pārsvanātha in the Jaina texts. 12
(iv) In the Buddhist literature a Nigantha doctrine of câtuyāma samvara is referred to. We cannot but agree with Prof. Jacobi in his surmise that this peculiar doctrine of fourfold restraints belonged to the followers of Pārsvanātha. It cannot be ascribed to Mahāvīra and his followers as in the Jaina literature a clear distinction is made between the pañcayāma dharma of Mahāvīra's order and the cātuvāma dharma of Pārsva's followers. Though the Buddhist attribution of this doctrine of fourfold restraints has been to Mahāvīra, we cannot but take it as a mis-statement. The Buddhists ascribed the old Nigantha creed to Mahāvīra who took the lead of the community and of whose reforms they were not aware.
(v) We cannot ignore the matter-of-fact enumeration of this doctrine of fourfold restraint in the Bhagavati Sūtra where in course of a serious dispute between Kālāsa vesiyaputta, a Pāsāvacchejja (i.e. Pārsvāpatyeya) or a follower of Pārśva and some disciples of Mahāvīra Kālāsa at last apologies and begs permission to stay with them after having changed the law of four vows for the law of the five vows!“ (tujjham antie cātuijāmato dhammāto pañoamahavvaiyaṁ sapadikkamaņaṁ dhammaṁ uvasampajjitanam viharittae).
(vi) The Jaina tradition refers to the existence of a set of sacred canons called the fourteen pūrvas even before the advent of Mahāvīra. These were later on either lost or incorporated in the later literature. Prof. Jacobi opines and probably quite rightly, that this existence of an earlier literature (pūrva) presupposes the existence of an earlier sect of the Niganthas.!
(vü) Above all Prof. Jacobi points out that the Majjhima Nikāya records a disputation between Buddha and Saccaka whose father belonged to Nigantha order. "Saccaka is not a Nigantha himself, as he boasts of having vanquished Nātaputta in disputation, and moreover the tenets he defends are not those of the Jainas. Now when a famous confroversialist, whose father was a Nigantha was a contemporary of the Buddha, the Niganthas can scarcely have been a sect founded during Buddha's life.!
These evidences, it appears, presuppose the existence of a Nigantha order founded by Pārsvanātha before the advent of Mahāvīra. It is also admitted on all hands that mahāvīra joined that order for sometime at the
TAHU YETI 37001 - 57, 2005
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