Buddhism and Jainism

BY PROF. PRITAM SINGH, M.A.

The founder of Buddhism was Prince Siddhartha, also known as Gotama Buddha, who was born in 560 B. C. and died in 480 B. C. His father was a landed nobleman of the Sakya Clan and hence the name Sakyamuni (Saint of Sakya of Kapilavastu). The place where this prince was born is on the foothills of the Himalayas, on the boundary line of British India and Nepal, and about 100 miles north-east of Benares.

Prince Siddhartha was brought up in manly sports and the arts of chase and war like other young princes of his rank. He married and had one son Rahula, who later became a follower of his father. The prince left his home, wife and child and wandered like many others in search of salvation. Legend has surrounded the great renunciation which has been described as having been brought about by the ominous sights of old age, disease and death, which the prince witnessed in the streets of the city of Kapilavastu.

Siddhartha wandered for seven years, resorted to the method of yoga, self-mortification and austerities such as fasting etc., but with no result. After this period, as he was sitting under a tree, the hour of illumination came and he saw through the causes of misery in this world, and in that moment he became the Buddha or the "enlightened one." He passed through a period of doubt and was faced with temptations like other great teachers but all allurements were wasted on him.

He met the yogis, his old friends, in Benares and explained to them the path he had discovered. This discourse has been called the Sermon of Sarnath and has been likened to the Sermon on the Mount of Jesus. He said to these yogis: "The seeker of salvation should be warned against the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification; both are unworthy and unprofitable." There is the middle way, following which man arrives at peace of mind, knowledge, enlightenment and nirvana or salvation. This middle way is the well-known eightfold path of Buddha, which comprises right belief, right resolution, right speech, right conduct, right means of subsistence, right effort, right meditation and right absorption.

The first step in this path is right belief, i.e., belief in the four fundamental principles as enunciated by Buddha–(l) there is universal suffering, (2) we must find the cause of this suffering, (3) we must remove the cause, and (4) the means by which this may be achieved, or the remedy, should be found. The belief or the conviction that Buddha has traced suffering to its cause and found the infallible remedy forms part of the right belief. Then follows the right resolution or the resolve to renounce all sensual pleasures, to have malice towards none, and to harm no living creature. Right speech means that one should abstain from biting or slander, should not use harsh language, nor tell a lie, nor indulge in frivolous talk. Right conduct would consist in being chaste and in not taking what does not belong to one, and in not destroying life. Right means of subsistence would mean earning wealth properly and giving up wrong occupations, and similarly right effort would consist in trying to acquire all the good qualities and in overcoming all evil qualities.

These six steps pertain to moral discipline and the next two are intellectual processes, such as overcoming sorrow and pain, and the last step is right absorption or concentration which is a state of consciousness beyond all pleasure or pain and may be called Nirvana or complete liberation, and not extinction as popularly understood. This can be attained according to Buddha right here.

This problem of pain and suffering from existence to existence had long occupied the minds of the Indian thinkers and Buddha found it in "Desire" and made it the corner stone of his doctrine. That, he said, was the real cause of suffering and it could be removed by following the eightfold path described above.

Buddhist thought evolved slowly and consequently it varied through slight degrees as the centuries rolled by.

For an account of the teachings of Buddha we have to depend upon the Pitakas or the Baskets of Law. These contain the sayings and doings of the Master, and they were compiled and completed before 241 B.C., when the Third Council was held. His teachings used to be recited in the Councils by the disciples, and were reduced to writing only in 80 B.C., in Ceylon.

Tripitakas or the Three Baskets are divided into,

(1) Vinaya which consists chiefly of the rules and regulations for the life and behaviour of the Buddhist monks and nuns.

(2) The Sutta which contains a statement of Buddhist faith, speculations and philosophical theories, together with sermons and conversations in the very words of Buddha.

(3) Abhidhamma which were supplementary treatises which enlarged upon the earlier Pitakas.

Buddha like Jesus left no written words, but after his death a Council of 500 monks came together at Rajgar and his disciples rehearsed the Vinaya and the Dhamma.

A hundred years later, a second Council was held at Vaisali to settle questions of monastic discipline; here too the Vinaya and Dhamma were rehearsed, no mention being made of Abhidhamma.

Another century later a Third Council was held at Pataliputra, under the patronage of King Asoka, for the uprooting and destruction of all false doctrine, because the Buddhist community had been rent into schisms.

The art of writing was known at that time, but was very little practised for the writing of books, and Pitakas were not reduced to writing until long after Buddha’s death. Some portions perhaps were reduced to writing in Asoka’s time, but the Pali Pitakas were recorded still later, probably two hundred years after that. The teaching of Buddha existed in oral tradition and was handed down from generation to generation like the Vedas. The Councils had to decide as to which was the primitive tradition and which was not.

Buddha’s ministry lasted for about forty-five years. He used to spend nine months in a year in wandering and the rainy months were passed near villages and towns. His wanderings were in Eastern India, comprising the provinces of Oudh and Bihar.

He used to rise very early, rinse his mouth, sit in meditation–then go about begging. Meals being over, he would wash his hands, discourse to the people present and return to the place where he was staying. He would wash his feet before retiring and return to his disciples for a discourse.

The causes of his popularity were these:

He was a prince and he met kings and nobles as an equal and there was no distinction of caste or creed among his followers.

Religious mendicants who left their home and put on the yellow robe were universally honoured in those days and most of the disciples of Buddha were from high families, Brahmanas and Kshatriyas and rich merchant-princes. Also, there was no organised opposition to his religion by the Hindus. Other orders were also celibates; they wore the yellow robe and begged for their food. Radical differences were only in the higher doctrine such as Nirvana. Of course Buddha did oppose the Brahmanical sacrifices and ceremonial, but in a manner that did not excite opposition.

The philosophy of Buddhism is chiefly psychology, and its ethics cannot be entirely separated from its metaphysics, The ultimate purpose of all its philosophy is not intellectual but moral–the attainment of freedom from pain and unrest of existence or Nirvana.

There are three universal truths in Buddhism which must be grasped. Firstly, that there is impermanence in the world. Every thing is passing and transitory and changing. Secondly, that all existence involves suffering. And thirdly that there is such a state as an absence of ego, soul, self or individuality. The soul is but a name and not a reality. These truths may be regarded as the foundation-truths of Buddha’s doctrine.

When he sat under the bodhi tree at Urivela, the four sacred truths dawned on him, namely, that (1) all existence involves suffering, (2) suffering is caused by desire, (3) extinction of desire will lead to the extinction of suffering, and (4) the way to this end is the eightfold path.

Buddha did not believe in a soul or an over-soul for the matter of that. Speculations about the unknown seemed to him to be waste of time and energy and therefore profitless hair-splitting. He knew only one question: how shall I in this world of suffering be delivered from suffering? To him there appeared to be only one thing worth striving for–freedom from sorrow. Why should sorrow, pain and misery reign supreme in the universe? And Buddha replied, because there was no permanence, everything was transitory, there was not "being" but only "becoming." There is nothing that abides, everything is changing, there is no rest, no peace, no satisfaction. In Buddha’s system of thought, transitoriness and misery, impermanence and sorrow were inevitably bound together.

According to Buddha there is no underlying persistent reality, that is to say, there is no permanent element, physical or spiritual, that will survive the death of the body. Buddhism held that every sentient being, including man, was made up of five groups of elements which may be described as "Nama-rupa," "Name and form" or "mind and matter." Matter again is divided into two categories–(l) external objects, and (2) sense organs. Mind includes feelings, ideas, volitions and sensation or consciousness.

Buddha denied the presence of a soul or self or ego in man. He regarded the mind or intellect or consciousness as more impermanent than body even, because of the rapid changes that take place in our perceptions and sensations.

His views on Karma and Rebirth are considered very vague and nebulous. His theory is intricate and involved. The law of Karma is another form of retributive justice which simply means that virtue is rewarded and wickedness is punished in some form. The apparent inequalities and unmerited suffering suggested the doctrine of transmigration which explained suffering in the present life to be due to evil deeds committed in a previous existence, and this combined doctrine of Karma and transmigration gripped the imagination of the ignorant. Is a man born blind and deaf and dumb? It is the result of his past karma. Is a woman ugly or deformed or ill-natured? It is the result of her past karma. According to this theory the soul of man passes from existence to existence bearing always with him his karma, the good and evil consequences of his deeds in former lives. But according to Buddha, as we have said above, there is no living soul to connect this life with the next. The question is, if Karma must necessarily work itself out, how is that to be done? If there be no soul, how can there be consequences of deeds and who will suffer those consequences? Buddhism has no reply to this question. There is, on the other hand, the emphatic denial that a living entity dies and transmigrates into another body or that a living entity is reborn and has got a new body. No rational explanation is coming forth of the doctrine of Karma and Rebirth. Consequently Buddhists all over the world are content with the Hindu doctrine of Karma and Transmigration.

The last question connected with Buddhism is about the true significance and meaning of Nirvana or the state of sorrowlessness as Buddha called it. This implied freedom from "becoming" or birth, disease, old age, death and rebirth. This clingling to "being" or existence depends upon illusion of individuality, i.e., ignorance according to Buddha. When this ignorance is dispelled by enlightenment, existence vanishes as darkness before light. The age-long struggle for existence is now over and with the ending of that struggle comes the cessation of desire, sorrowlessness, peace and bliss.

The aim of both theoretical and practical Buddhism is to bring about the gradual quietening of the elements of "being" and, in the end, their extinction. The elements of being in the ordinary man are conceived of as being perpetually in a state of commotion and turmoil. This state is the result of ignorance. When wisdom is attained, the elements of being are under control and that is Nirvana.

There are said to be at least four hundred million Buddhists in the world today. How are we to account for such large numbers? The explanation is that Buddhism, wherever it has spread, has tolerated and in most cases adopted the religion of the people it was attempting to win. In its primitive form we find it nowhere. Even in India, the land of its birth, it was completely transformed into a religion of magic and miracle and in the end it failed in competition with Hinduism which admitted of dilution to the highest degree.

A corrupt form of Buddhism was introduced into Tibet from India, where it allied itself with dreadful superstitions and savage practices of the fierce and uncouth mountain people. Modern Buddhism in Tibet is called Lamaism and is polytheistic and idolatrous in the extreme. The ingenious prayer-wheel of the Tibetans and the rebirth of the Lama and all that paraphernalia of monasticism are instances in point. It would be difficult to imagine a religion further removed from the original teaching of Buddha than Lamaism of the Tibetans.

The Buddhism of China and Japan like that of Tibet belongs to the Mahayana school (or the Greater vehicle), and in Mongolia and some parts of China, Lamaism is the prevailing faith. A large majority of the four hundred millions of Buddhists are to be found in these two countries. Every Chinese Buddhist is a Confucionist (follower of Confucius) first and a Buddhist afterwards. And so in Japan, every Japanese is both a Shintoist and a Buddhist at one and the same time. The laity in these two countries, as distinguished from the monks, is Buddhist only in form and not in spirit.

The Hinayana Buddhism (the Lesser Vehicle) which is based on the Pali Pitakas or Baskets is purer in form and has been preserved in Ceylon, Burma and Siam. Ceylon may be regarded as Buddhist, while in Burma and Siam, the Buddhists have other religions to which they turn in time of trouble. The worship of demons and nature spirits still continues in these countries. Even in Ceylon we find layer upon layer of different religious beliefs with Buddhism covering the surface.

This shows that nowhere is the gospel of Buddha preached or practised in modern times and Buddhism has ceased to be a living force in the life of the people.

Long before Christianity started the monastic order, it had been in existence among the Hindus and Buddha’s was no innovation either. Renouncing the world, donning the yellow robe and having the beggar’s bowl were institutions which were common then in India as they are even now.

Buddha had as a matter of fact founded the Sanghas (gatherings where teachers and the taught came together) whose rules were formulated by him when he was living. He was the master of the Sangha so to say, when he was alive, but after his passing away, the Sangha became a monastic community. The new recruit on entering the Order had to say–"I take refuge in the Buddha, in the Doctrine and in the Order." After Buddha’s death, there was no central authority such as we have of the Pope in the Roman Catholic Church. Consequently the Councils held long after had to decide the matters of doctrine as well as the laws of the Order. Thus were created discords and dissensions which bore in themselves the germs of dissolution. Lack of central organisation was responsible for the ultimate disappearance of Buddhism from India.

The ceremony of initiation was completed in two stages: (1) preparatory, that is leaving home and going into homelessness, or leaving another sect and joining the Order; (2) becoming a Bhikshu, when the entrant had to take the three vows of poverty of celibacy and of ahimsa. During the first five years after being ordained, the monk was required to place himself under the guidance and instruction of two able monks who shall have belonged to the order for at least ten years.

The monks had to fast twice a month on the full moon and the new moon day (and now in Ceylon four times a month). The confession of sins had to be made on these days like the Catholics do even now. There was no public worship among the monks and each monk had to work out his own salvation.

As an individual, a monk could possess, (1) a set of three garments, (2) a girdle for the loins, (3) an alms bowl, (4) a razor, (5) a needle, and (6) a water strainer. As a community, monks could have books, houses and lands even. A monk could revert to the life of a householder, if he so wished.

Buddha was opposed to having women in the order as nuns, but he was forced to do it against his will. He placed the nuns under the guardianship of the monks. Buddha’s community therefore is a community of monks mainly. But surrounding this inner circle of the elect was the outer circle of lay devotees, both men and women. No regular religious gatherings were instituted for the laity and much less were they permitted to join the monks in their assemblies. By the daily begging rounds the monks kept in touch with the laity and thus had opportunities of giving them religious help in times of trouble and sickness. The laity were able to heap up merit by serving the monks. Thus grew up an elaborate system of charities which is the bane of both Hinduism and Buddhism.

One cannot but admire the great renunciation of Buddha, but it appears as if his assumption of universal suffering like the assumption of the Christians that there is sin in the world is far-fetched. As regards metaphysics, Buddha seems to have favoured the Sankhya school of thought which postulated the existence of mind and matter only, and not of the soul or for the matter of that of the over-soul. The Law of Karma as enunciated by Buddha is just like the Christian doctrine of ‘as you sow, so shall you reap,’ but in the absence of a soul, Buddhism did not and could not succeed in linking it up with the Hindu doctrine of transmigration of soul, which held the field at the time. And yet we see the Buddhists all over the world obsessed with the idea of the survival of the human consciousness after death which takes a new body or enters a new embryo.

"Buddha held morality in higher regard than theology and inculcated conduct rather than dogma. He was in the first place a moralist and a social reformer. The Vedic priesthood ruled with an iron rod over the people. Buddha weakened the autocratic grip of the Brahmans and relaxed the national faith in the efficacy of elaborate and expensive sacrifices offered to fictitious gods. He attacked rigid ritualism and traditional religion and laid stress on self-sacrifice as the noblest and simplest offering on the invisible altar of a chastened heart. (Horwitz)

For the monks to take the three vows of poverty, celibacy and ahimsa and thus give up all the joys that life can give, was extremely difficult and for the laity to go on supporting such parasites on society was also not practicable, and consequently there arose an unbridgeable gulf between the law and its application in real life. Therein lay the weakness of Buddhism, and no wonder that the influence of Buddhistic thought has been on the wane even in the lands where Buddhism had flourished in the past. In our country the influence has for all practical purposes entirely disappeared.

The masses in Asia have adored Buddha not because of his teaching and doctrines, which they have understood as little as we do, but because they think that by devotion to him they shall attain eternal salvation or Nirvana. Buddha, however, never claimed to be an incarnation of Vishnu as Hindus make him out to be, nor did he call himself a Saviour who saves others by His personal salvation. Buddha exhorted his followers to depend on themselves for their salvation. Buddha’s personality as a teacher of renunciation and compassion may be very great, but his message cannot fit in with the age in which we live.

The Jain sect was founded in the same period as Buddhism and resembles in many ways that great religion. The word Jain is derived from Sanskrit Jina, meaning the "Conqueror of the world." The community is to be found in every important Indian town among the merchant class. In Gujerat, Rajputana and the Punjab they are fairly numerous, while in South India they reside in the Kanara district. There are two kinds of Jains– Digambara and Svetambara, each of which is split up into several sub-divisions. The Digambara or "Sky-robed" regard nudity as the indispensable sign of holiness, though they wear a large Chadar these days, which they take off when taking meals. The "Svetambara" or ‘white robed’ belong to the other school. No inter-marriages can take place among these two branches, nor can they eat at the same table; otherwise the doctrine, the discipline and the loyalty are the same.

Jainism like Buddhism is regarded as a universal faith and both are opposed to Brahminism. Its object is to lead men to salvation; so it admits low-born Sudras as well as aliens within its fold. But in practice this is very rarely done if ever. Like Buddhism, Jainism is a philosophical ethical system intended for disciples, who are divided into monks and the laity. Like Hinduism, Jainism seeks salvation in setting the human soul free from the revolution of birth and death. The means of reaching this are the Right Faith, the Right Knowledge and the Right Way. By Right Faith is meant the full surrender to the Jina or Teacher, in other words the firm conviction that he alone has found the way of salvation. If you ask a Jain who Jina is, he will give you exactly the same answer as a Buddhist would give with regard to Buddha. The Jains prefer to use the names Jina and Arhat, while the Buddhists prefer to speak of Buddha as Tathagata or the "perfect one." The Jains call such perfected souls as Tirthankaras or the founders of religion. There were twenty-four such Jinas, like the 25 Buddhas and the 14 Manus, and the last one, who appeared in the last half of the sixth century according to some or the first half of the fifth century according to others, was known as Vardhamana or Mahavira who is a historical personage and the present day Jains believe in him. Jainism is, however, an independent sect and not a branch of Buddhism, since the Buddhists confirm the statements of the Jains about their prophet.

The following facts seem to be incontrovertible. Vardhamana was the younger son of Siddhartha, a nobleman of the Kshatriya race. They were the residents of Kundapura, a suburb of Vaisali in the Tirhut district of Bihar Province. At the age of thirty Vardhamana now known as Mahavira or "Great Hero" left his home. He had married and had a daughter. He became a homeless ascetic and wandered for more than twelve years and led a very hard life imposing on himself the severest mortifications. He discarded the clothes and devoted himself to meditation and attained to the stage of Nirvana. He taught what is known as the nirgrantha (no ties) doctrine and organised an ascetic order and took the name "Mahavira." He traveled as a teacher for thirty years, during which time he went all over the country and he won many followers. The scene of his activities corresponds to that of Buddha and he was not only a contemporary of Buddha but his fellow countryman also. He passed away in the town named Pavapuri, at the ripe old age of 72.

The Jain doctrine may briefly be summarised as follows: -

(1) The world is uncreated. It exists without a ruler, only by the power of its elements, and is everlasting. The elements of which this world is constituted are six in number, viz., soul, righteousness, sin, space, time and matter. Souls are separate independent existences and possess an impulse to action. In the world they are chained to bodies. Merit and sin drives them from one existence to another. Virtue leads to birth in noble races, sin consigns the souls to lower regions, in the bodies of animals, vegetables and minerals.

(2) According to the Jain doctrine, soul exists in inorganic matter, such as stones, earth, water, fire and wind.

(3) The bondage of souls can be broken by the suppression of all activity or, in other words, by the control of senses. New Karmas should not be created and hence asceticism becomes necessary. The final stage is the attainment of Moksha or Nirvana, full deliverance from all bonds. The soul is immortal and after death wanders into the heaven of the Jinas or the delivered ones and continues eternally to live there.

(4) In placing virtue and vice as substances. Jainism stands alone, and it is atheistic in so far that it holds that the world is self-existent.

A Jain ascetic has like other ascetics to take five vows–not to hurt, not to speak untruth, not to appropriate to himself anything without permission, to be chaste and to be self-sacrificing. This asceticism is both outward and inward, and the self-discipline is of the sternest type. Self-mortification and fasting are carried to an extreme. A disciple of Jina, when he enters the Order, has to give up his possessions, wander homeless with a begging bowl in hand and never stay longer than one night in a place. He must carry three articles with him, a straining cloth, a broom and a veil for the mouth. Sins must be confessed as among the Catholics and the Buddhists. For the laity, the discipline is relaxed considerably.

The laity have been clinging to the founder, and raised monuments and temples ornamented with his statues. To this is added a kind of worship, consisting of offerings of flowers and incense to Jina, singing processions and pilgrimages to sacred places. Most beautiful temples have been built in Abu, Girnar and Satrunjaya in Gujerat. The Jains like the Buddhists have built monasteries or places of refuge in many places where monks live and engage in literary pursuits. The sacred scriptures of the Jains are known as Angas and Kalpa-Sutras and they are, like the Buddhist literature, mostly in the Pali language. In South India, Kanarese and Telugu and Tamil have been considerably enriched by the writings of Jain monks.

Jainism and Buddhism were therefore two independent but contemporary reform movements in the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. and both aimed at overthrowing the Brahminical order of things.