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THE ORIGIN OF JAINISM that separate and supreme vision of all-sufficing Aryan knowledge passing human ken;
5. That Buddha knew that it could be acquired by tapas, and performed severe austerities for its acquisition ;
6. That tapas, leading to no useful results in his case, he did not give up, but determined, if possible, to seek his ideal in some other way.
Buddha had thus no manner of doubt about that separate and supreme vision of all-sufficing Aryan knowledge passing human ken. It was a certainty for which he performed the severest austerities for years, and from the pursuit of which even enfeeblement, emaciation and repeated failure combined, could not keep him away!
Buddha must have actually seen the Tirthamkara himself or some other omniscient Jaina Teacher to have acquired this certainty. It may be added that there was no one else whose example could have fired Buddha's imagination in this way, for none claimed then to be omniscient outside Jainism. It is also interesting to note that in the Anguttara Nikaya (iii. 74) Abhaya, a prince of the Lichchavis of Vaisâli, refers to the Jaina affirmation of ability to attain to full knowledge and to annihilate Karmas, old and new, by means of austerity (see the Outlines of Jainism,' p. xxxi).
I think, not one word more is needed from me to demonstrate the utter falsehood of the position taken by Mountstuart Elphinstone and Dr. H. S. Gour.
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