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YAŠASTILAKA AND INDIAN CULTURE
certain amount of communal hatred existed between the Jainas and the Buddhists, and mutual recriminations are occasionally found in the religious literature of both the communities. The Jainas contended that since the Buddhists denied the existence of the Self, all their talk of compassion and philanthrophy was meaningless. The Buddha is accordingly called 'ferocious and merciless' (!) in Jatāsimhanandi's Varāngacarita 25. 84. On similar grounds Akalanka accuses the Buddha of criminal propensities such as injury to others, falsehood, theft and unchastity !
The Buddhists are likewise in the habit of giving expression to their contempt for the Jainas and their habits and customs. The celebrated Mahāyāna work Saddharma-pundarika (earlier than the third century says, for instance, that the Bodhisattvamust avoid such monks as follow the precepts of the Arhat, and immoral men (chap. XIII)'S
The practice of nudity (nagnabhāva ) mentioned in the Lalitavistara (chap. XVII) among the stupid customs followed by the adherents of the non-Buddhist systems obviously refers to the Digambara monks. In the first half of the seventh century, the great Chinese traveller Hsüan-tsang (the name is variously spelt), a philosopher of Mahāyāna Buddhism, ridicules Jainism as a sort of caricature of the Buddhist religion. “These sectarians”, writes Hsüan-tsang, "give themselves up to extreme austerities. Day and night they display the most ardent zeal without a moment's respite. The law expounded by their founder (Mahāvīra) has been largely stolen from the books of Buddha, and on this he guided himself when laying down his precepts and rules. In their religious observances and exercises, they follow almost entirely the rule of the Buddhist monks............. The statue of their teacher, by a kind of impertinent imitation, resembles that of Buddha.” Here is a picture of the Digambara monks drawn by the Chinese pilgrim: " The Jainas think they gain distinction by leaving their bodies entirely naked, and they make a virtue of tearing out their hair. Their skin is all broken, and their feet are horny and cracked; they are like those rotten trees that are found close to a river. ”4 In similar but less dignified language, certain Digambara practices are held up to ridicule in the Dohākosa of Sarojavajra (Saraha) written in an Apabhramsa dialect sometime between the eighth and twelfth ceuturies, Saraha, who was a Buddhist Tantric writer, says that if it were possible to attain salvation by going about naked, the dogs and the jackals would surely attain it. As
Nyāya viniscaya, verse 390.
1 'Tata ATEI 2 BESTETIT atiqafera: 1 Klatoztat a altera Il 3 Trans, Kern, p. 265 (S. D. E.) 4 Grousset: In the footsteps of the Buddha, pp. 197-8. 5 Ed H. P. Sastri in ala TG 311 ater, Introduction, p. 6.
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