Uttaradhyayana Sutra

by Hermann Jacobi | 1895 | 69,629 words | ISBN-10: 8120801466 | ISBN-13: 9788120801462

The Englsih translation of the Uttaradhyayana Sutra which represents one of the Mulasutras in Shvetambara Jainism. The text consists of 36 chapters dealing with a variety of topics within Jainism such as doctrine and discipline. Alternative titles include: Uttarādhyayana-sūtra (उत्तराध्ययन-सूत्र), Uttarādhyayanasūtra (उत्तराध्ययनसूत्र)....

Introduction

TEN years have elapsed since the first part of my translation of Jaina Sūtras appeared. During that decennium many and very important additions to our knowledge of Jainism and its history have been made by a small number of excellent scholars. The text of the canonical books, together with good commentaries in Sanskrit and Guzeratī, has been made accessible in fair editions published by native scholars in India. Critical editions of two of them have been published by Professors Leumann[1] and Hoernle[2]; and the latter scholar has added a careful translation and ample illustrations to his edition of the text. A general survey of the whole Jaina literature has been given by Professor Weber in his catalogue of the Berlin Manuscripts[3] and in his learned treatise[4] on the sacred literature of the Jainas. The development of Jaina learning and science has been studied by Professor Leumann, and some Jaina legends and their relations to those of the Brahmans and Buddhists have been investigated by the same scholar[5]. An important document for our knowledge of the old history of the Śvetāmbara sect has been edited by myself[6], and the history of some of their Gacchas has been made known from their lists of teachers by Hoernle and Klatt. The last-named scholar, whom we have all but lost by this time, has prepared a biographical dictionary of all Jaina writers and historical persons, and he has issued specimens of this great Onomasticon, while Hofrat Bühler has written a detailed biography of the famous encyclopaedist Hemacandra[7]. The same scholar has deciphered the ancient inscriptions, and discussed the sculptures excavated by Dr. Führer at Mathurā[8], and the important inscriptions at Śravaṇa Belgola have been edited by Mr. Lewis Rice[9]; M. A. Barth has reviewed our knowledge of Jainism[10], and likewise Bühler in a short paper[11]. Lastly Bhandarkar has given a most valuable sketch of the whole of Jainism[12]. All these additions to our knowledge of Jainism (and I have but mentioned the most remarkable ones) have shed so much clear light on the whole subject that little room is left now for mere guesswork, and the true historical and philological method can be applied to all its parts. Still some of the principal problems require elucidation, while the proffered solution of others is not accepted by all scholars. I, therefore, gladly avail myself of this opportunity to discuss some of the disputed points, for the settling of which the works translated in this volume offer valuable materials.

It is now admitted by all that Nātaputta (Jñātṛputra), who is commonly called Mahāvīra or Vardhamāna, was a contemporary of Buddha; and that the Nigaṇṭhas[13] (Nirgranthas), now better known under the name of Jainas or Ārhatas, already existed as an important sect at the time when the Buddhist church was being founded. But it is still open to doubt whether the religion of the early Nirgranthas was essentially the same as that taught in the canonical and other books of the present Jainas, or underwent a great change up to the time of the composition of the Siddhānta. In order to come nearer the solution of this question, it may be desirable to collect from the published Buddhist works, as the oldest witnesses we can summon, all available information about the Nigaṇṭhas, their doctrines and religious practices.

In the Aṅguttara Nikāya, III, 74, a learned prince of the Licchavis of Vaiśālī, Abhaya[14], gives the following account of some Nigaṇṭha doctrines: ‘The Nigaṇṭha Nātaputta, sir, who knows and sees all things, who claims perfect knowledge and faith (in the following terms): “walking and standing, sleeping or waking, I am always possessed of perfect knowledge and faith;” teaches the annihilation by austerities of the old Karman, and the prevention by inactivity of new Karman. When Karman ceases, misery ceases; when misery ceases, perception ceases; when perception ceases, every misery will come to an end. In this way a man is saved by pure annihilation of sin (nijjarā) which is really effective.’

The Jaina counterpart to these tenets can be collected from the Uttarādhyayana XXIX. By austerities he cuts off Karman,‘ § 27. ’By renouncing activity he obtains inactivity; by ceasing to act he acquires no new Karman, and destroys the Karman he had acquired before,' § 37. The last stages in this process are fully described in §§ 71,

72. And again, in XXXII, v. 7, we read: ‘Karman is the root of birth and death, and birth and death they call misery.’ The nearly identical verses 34, 47, 60, 73, 86, 99 may be thus condensed: ‘But a man who is indifferent to the object of the senses, and to the feelings of the mind [this comes nearest to the Buddhist vedanā, perception], is free from sorrows; though still in the Saṃsāra, he is not afflicted by that long succession of pains. just as the leaf of the Lotus (is not moistened) by water.’

The above assertion that Nātaputta claimed the possession of perfect knowledge and faith, requires no further proof; for it is one of the fundamental dogmas of the Jainas.

Another piece of information about Nigaṇṭha doctrines may be gathered from the Mahāvagga VI, 31 (S. B. E., vol. xvii, p. 108 ff.) There a story is told of Sīha[15], the general of the Licchavis, who was a lay disciple of Nātaputta. He wanted to pay the Buddha a visit, but Nātaputta tried to dissuade him from it, because the Nigaṇṭhas held the Kriyāvāda, while the Buddha taught the Akriyāvāda. Sīha, however, setting his master’s prohibition at nought, went to the Buddha on his own account, and was, of course, converted by him. Now the statement that the Nigaṇṭhas embraced the Kriyāvāda is borne out by our texts; for in the Sūtrakṛtāṅga I, 12, 21, below, p. 319, it is said that a perfect ascetic ‘is entitled to expound the Kriyāvāda;’ and this doctrine is thus expressed in the Ācārāṅga Sūtra I, 1, 1, 4 (part i, p. 2): ‘He believes in soul, believes in the world, believes in reward, believes in action (believed to be our own doing in such judgments as these): “I did it;” “I shall cause another to do it;” "I shall allow another to do it.’

Another lay disciple of Mahāvīra, converted by the Buddha, was Upāli. As narrated in the Majjhima Nikāya 56, he ventured upon a dispute with him whether the sins of the mind are heaviest, as the Buddha teaches, or the sins of the body, as the Nigaṇṭha Nātaputta contends. In the beginning of the discourse Upāli states that his master uses the term daṇḍa, punishment, for what is commonly called kamma, deed, act. This is true, though not quite to the letter; for the word kamma occurs also in the Jaina Sūtras in that sense. The term daṇḍa, however, is at least as frequently used. Thus, in the Sūtrakṛtāṅga II, 2, p. 357 ff., the thirteen kinds of ‘committing sins’ are treated of, and in the first five cases the word which I have translated committing sins' is in the original daṇḍasamādāṇe, and in the remaining cases kiriyāṭhaṇe, i.e. kriyāsthāna.

The Nigaṇṭha Upāli goes on to explain that there are three daṇḍas, the daṇḍa of body, that of speech, and that of mind. This agrees with the Jaina doctrine expressed in nearly the same words in the Sthānāṅga Sūtra, 3rd uddeśaka (see Indian Antiquary, IX, p. 159).

The second statement of Upāli, that the Nigaṇṭhas consider sins of the body more important than sins of the mind, is in perfect harmony with Jaina views. For in the Sūtrakṛtāṅga II, 4, p. 398 ff., the question is discussed whether sins may be committed unconsciously, and it is boldly answered in the affirmative (compare note 6, p. 399); and in the Sixth Lecture of the same book (p. 414) the Buddhists are severely ridiculed for maintaining that it depends on the intention of the man whether a deed of his be a sin or not.

In the Aṅguttara Nikāya III, 70, 3, some practices of Nigaṇṭha laymen are discussed. I translate the passage thus: ‘O Visākhā, there is a class of Samaṇas who are called Nigaṇṭhas. They exhort a Sāvaka thus: “Well, sir, you must desist from doing injury to beings in the East beyond a yojana from here, or to those in the West, North, South, always beyond a yojana from here.” In this way they enjoin tenderness by making him spare some living beings; in this way they enjoin cruelty by making him not spare other living beings.’ It is not difficult to recognise under these words the Digvirati vow of the Jainas, which consists in laying down the limits beyond which one shall not travel nor do business in the different directions. A man who keeps this vow cannot, of course, do any harm to beings beyond the limits within which he is obliged to keep. This is so distorted by the hostile sect as to lay the rule under discussion open to blame. We cannot expect one sect to give a fair and honest exposition of the tenets of their opponents; it is but natural that they should put them in such a form as to make the objections to be raised against them all the better applicable. The Jainas were not a whit better in this respect than the Bauddhas, and they have retorted upon them in the same way; witness their misrepresentation of the Buddhist idea that a deed becomes a sin only through the sinful intention of the doer, in a passage in the present volume, p. 414, v. 26 ff., where the sound principle of the Buddhists is ridiculed by applying it to a fictitious and almost absurd case.

The passage in the Aṅguttara Nikāya, which we have just discussed, goes on as follows: ‘On the Uposatha day they exhort a Sāvaka thus: “Well, sir, take off all your clothes and declare: I belong to nobody, and nobody belongs to me.” Now his parents know him to be their son, and he knows them to be his parents. His son or wife know him to be their father or husband, and he knows them to be his son or wife. His slaves and servants know him to be their master, and he knows them to be his slaves and servants. Therefore (the Nigaṇṭhas) make him use lying speech at the time when he makes the above declarations. On this account I charge him with lying speech. After the lapse of that night he enjoys pleasures (by means of things) that were not freely given. On this account I charge him with taking of what is not freely given.’

According to this statement, the duties of a Nigaṇṭha layman became, during the Uposatha days, equal to those of a monk; it was on common days only that the difference between layman and monk was realised. This description, however, does not quite agree with the Posaha rules of the Jainas. Bhandarkar gives the following definition of Posaha according to the Tattvārthasāradīpikā, which agrees with what we know about it from other sources: Posaha, i.e. to observe a fast or eat once only or one dish only on the two holy days (the eighth and the fourteenth of each fortnight), after having given up bathing, unguents, ornaments, company of women, odours, incense, lights, &c., and assumed renunciation as an ornament.' Though the Posaha observances of the present Jainas are apparently more severe than those of the Buddhists, still they fall short of the above description of the Nigaṇṭha rules; for a Jaina layman does not, to my knowledge, take off his clothes during the Posaha days, though he discards all ornaments and every kind of luxury; nor must he pronounce any formula of renunciation similar to that which the monks utter on entering the order. Therefore, unless the Buddhist account contains some mistake or a gross misstatement, it would appear that the Jainas have abated somewhat in their rigidity with regard to the duties of laymen.

Buddhaghosa, in his commentary on the Brahmajāla Sutta, Dīgha Nikāya I, 2, 38[16], mentions the Nigaṇṭhas as holding the opinion, discussed in the text, that the soul has no colour, in contradistinction to the Ājīvikas, who divide mankind into six classes according to the colour of the Ātman; both Nigaṇṭhas and Ājīvikas, however, agree in maintaining that the soul continues to exist after death and is free from ailments (arogo). Whatever may be the exact meaning of the last expression, it is clear that the above description squares with the opinions of the Jainas about the nature of the soul, as described below, p. 172 f.

In another passage (l.c. p. 168) Buddhaghosa says that Nigaṇṭha Nātaputta considers cold water to be possessed of life (so kira sītodake sattasaññī hoti), for which reason he does not use it. This doctrine of the Jainas is so generally known that I need not bring forward any quotation from the Sūtras in support of its genuineness.

This is nearly all the information on the doctrines of the ancient Nigaṇṭhas which I have been able to gather from the Pāli texts. Though it is less than we desire, its value is not to be underrated. For with one exception all the doctrines and usages of the ancient Nigaṇṭhas mentioned agree with those of the present Jainas, and they comprise some of the fundamental ideas of Jainism. It is therefore not probable that the doctrines of the Jainas have undergone a great change in the interval between the quoted Buddhist records and the composition of the Jaina canon.

I have purposely deferred the discussion of the classical passage on the doctrines of Nigaṇṭha Nātaputta, because it leads us to a new line of inquiry. The passage in question occurs in the Sāmaññaphala Sutta of the Dīgha Nikāya[17]. I translate it in accordance with Buddhaghosa’s comment in the Sumaṅgala Vilāsinī. ‘Here, great king, a Nigaṇṭha is protected by restraint in four directions (cātuyāmasaṃvarasaṃvuto). How, great king, is a Nigaṇṭha protected by restraint in four directions? Here, great king, a Nigaṇṭha abstains from all (cold) water, he abstains from all bad deeds, by abstinence from all bad deeds he is free from sins, he realises abstinence from all bad deeds. In this way, great king, a Nigaṇṭha is protected by restraint in four directions. And, great king, because he is thus protected, the Nigaṇṭha Nātaputta’s soul is exalted, is restrained, is well settled[18].’--This is, certainly, not an accurate nor an exhaustive description of the Jaina creed, though it contains nothing alien from it, and successfully imitates the language of the Jaina Sūtras. As I have already explained elsewhere[19], I think the term cātuyāmasaṃvarasaṃvuto has been misunderstood not only by the commentator, but also by the author of the text. For the Pāli cātuyāma is equivalent to the Prākṛt cātujjāma, a well-known Jaina term which denotes the four vows of Pārśva in contradistinction to the five vows (pañca mahavvaya) of Mahāvīra. Here, then, the Buddhists, I suppose, have made a mistake in ascribing to Nātaputta Mahāvīra a doctrine which properly belonged to his predecessor Pārśva. This is a significant mistake; for the Buddhists could not have used the above term as descriptive of the Nigaṇṭha creed unless they had heard it from followers of Pārśva, and they would not have used it if the reforms of Mahāvīra had already been generally adopted by the Nigaṇṭhas at the time of the Buddha. I, therefore, look on this blunder of the Buddhists as a proof for the correctness of the Jaina tradition, that followers of Pārśva actually existed at the time of Mahāvīra.

Before following up this line of inquiry, I have to call attention to another significant blunder of the Buddhists: they call Nātaputta an Aggivesana, i.e. Agnivaiśyāyana; according to the Jainas, however, he was a Kāśyapa, and we may credit them in such particulars about their own Tīrthakara. But Sudharman, his chief disciple, who in the Sūtras is made the expounder of his creed, was an Agnivaiśyāyana, and as he played a prominent part in the propagation of the Jaina religion, the disciple may often have been confounded by outsiders with the master, so that the Gotra of the former was erroneously assigned to the latter. Thus by a double blunder the Buddhists attest the existence of Mahāvīra’s predecessor Pārśva and of his chief disciple Sudharman.

That Pārśva was a historical person, is now admitted by all as very probable; indeed, his followers, especially Keśi[20], who seems to have been the leader of the sect at the time of Mahāvīra, are frequently mentioned in Jaina Sūtras in such a matter-of-fact way, as to give us no reason for doubting the authenticity of those records. The legend in the Uttarādhyayana, Lecture XXIII, how the union of the old and the new church was effected, is of much interest in this respect. Keśi and Gautama, the representatives and leaders of the two branches of the Jaina church, both at the head of their pupils, meet in a park near Śrāvasti; the differences in their creed concerning the number of great vows, and the use or disuse of clothes are explained away without further discussion, and full harmony with regard to the fundamental ethical ideas is satisfactorily established by the readiness with which allegorical expressions of the one speaker are understood and explained by the other. There seems to have been some estrangement, but no hostility between the two branches of the church; and though the members of the older branch invariably are made to adopt the Law of Mahāvīra, ‘which enjoins five vows,’ it may be imagined that they continued in some of their old practices, especially with regard to the use of clothes, which Mahāvīra had abandoned. On this assumption we can account for the division of the church in Śvetāmbaras and Digambaras, about the origin of which both sects have contradictory legends[21]. There was apparently no sudden rupture; but an original diversity (such as e.g. subsists now between the several Gakchas of the Śvetāmbaras) ripened into division, and in the end brought about the great schism.

The records in the Buddhist Canon are not repugnant to our views about the existence of the Nigaṇṭhas before Nātaputta; for the Nigaṇṭhas must have been an important sect at the time when Buddhism took its rise. This may be inferred from the fact that they are so frequently mentioned in the Piṭakas as opponents or converts of Buddha and his disciples; and as it is nowhere said or even merely implied that the Nigaṇṭhas were a newly-founded sect, we may conclude that they had already existed a considerable time before the advent of the Buddha. This conclusion is supported by another fact. Makkhali Gosāla, a contemporary of Buddha and Mahāvīra, divided mankind into six classes[22]. Of these, according to Buddhaghosa[23], the third class contains the Nigaṇṭhas. Gosāla probably would not have ranked them as a separate, i.e. fundamental subdivision of mankind, if they had only recently come into existence. He must have looked upon them as a very important, and at the same time, an old sect, in the same way in which, in my opinion, the early Buddhists looked upon them. As a last argument in favour of my theory I may mention that in the Majjhima Nikāya 35, a disputation between the Buddha and Saccaka, the son of a Nigaṇṭha, is narrated. Saccaka is not a Nigaṇṭha himself, as he boasts of having vanquished Nātaputta in disputation[24], and, moreover, the tenets he defends are not those of the Jainas. Now when a famous controversialist, whose father was a Nigaṇṭha, was a contemporary of the Buddha, the Nigaṇṭhas can scarcely have been a sect founded during Buddha’s life.

Let us now confront the records of the Jainas about the philosophical doctrines of heretics, which they had to combat, with such as the Buddhists describe. In the Sūtrakṛtāṅga II, I, 15 (p. 339 f.) and 21 f. (p. 343) two materialistic theories which have much in common are spoken of. The first passage treats of the opinion of those who contend that the body and the soul are one and the same thing; the second passage is concerned with the doctrine that the five elements are eternal and constitute everything. The adherents of either philosophy maintain that it is no sin to kill living beings. Similar opinions are, in the Sāmaññaphala Sutta, ascribed to Pūraṇa Kassapa and Ajita Kesakambalī. The former denies that there is such a thing as sin or merit. Ajita Kesakambalī holds that nothing real corresponds to the current transcendental ideas. He moreover maintains: Man (puriso) consists of the four elements; when he dies, earth returns to earth, water to water, fire to fire, wind to wind, and the organs of sense merge into air (or space)[25]. Four bearers with the hearse carry the corpse to the place of cremation (or, while it is burned) they make lamentations; the dove-coloured bones remain, the offerings are reduced to ashes.‘ The last passage recurs with few alterations in the Sūtrakṛtāṅga, p. 340: ’Other men carry the corpse away to burn it. When it has been consumed by fire, only dove-coloured bones remain, and the four bearers return with the hearse to their village[26].'

In connection with the second materialistic system (p. 343, § 22, and p. 237 f., vv. 15, 16) a variety of it is mentioned, which adds the permanent Ātman or soul as a sixth to the five permanent elements. This seems to have been a primitive or a popular form of the philosophy which we now know under the name of Vaiśeṣika. To this school of philosophy we must perhaps assign Pakudha Kaccāyana of Buddhist record. He maintained[27] that there are seven eternal, unchangeable, mutually independent things: the four elements, pleasure, pain, and the soul. As they have no influence upon one another, it is impossible to do any real harm to anybody. I confess that to maintain the eternal existence of pleasure and pain (sukha and dukkha) and to deny their influence on the soul, seems to me absurd; but the Buddhists have perhaps misstated the original tenets. At any rate, the views of Pakudha Kaccāyana come under the denomination of Akriyāvāda; and in this they differ from the Vaiśeṣika proper, which is a Kriyāvāda system. As these two terms are frequently used both by Buddhists and Jainas, it will not be amiss to define them more accurately. Kriyāvāda is the doctrine which teaches that the soul acts or is affected by acts. Under this head comes Jainism, and of Brahmanical philosophies Vaiśeṣika and Nyāya (which, however, are not expressly quoted in the canonical books of either Buddhists or Jainas), and apparently a great many systems of which the names have not been preserved, but the existence of which is implied in our texts. Akriyāvāda is the doctrine which teaches either that a soul does not exist, or that it does not act or is not affected by acts. Under this subdivision fall the different schools of materialists; of Brahmanical philosophies the Vedānta, Sāṅkhya, and Yoga; and the Buddhists. Of the latter the doctrines of the Kṣaṇikavādins and the Śūnyavādins are alluded to in Sūtrakṛtāṅga I, 14, verses 4 and 7. It may be mentioned here that the Vedāntists or their opinions are frequently mentioned in the Siddhānta; in the Sūtrakṛtāṅga the Vedānta is the third heresy described in the First Lecture of the Second Book, p. 344; it is also adverted to in the Sixth Lecture, p. 417. But as no professor of it was among the six heretical teachers (titthiya) of the Buddhists, we may pass them over here[28].

The fourth heresy discussed in the First Lecture of the Second Book of the Sūtrakṛtāṅga[29] is Fatalism. In the Sāmaññaphala Sutta this system is expounded by Makkhali Gosāla in the following words[30]: ‘Great king, there is no cause, nor any previously existing principle productive of the pollution of sentient beings; their defilement is uncaused and unproduced by anything previously existing. There is no cause nor any previously existing principle productive of the purity of sentient beings: their purity is uncaused and unproduced by anything previously existing. For their production there is nothing that results from the conduct of the individuals, nothing from the actions of others, nothing from human effort: they result neither from power nor effort, neither from manly fortitude nor manly energy. Every sentient being, every insect, every living thing, whether animal or vegetable[31], is destitute of intrinsic force, power, or energy, but, being held by the necessity of its nature, experiences happiness or misery in the six forms of existence, &c.’ The explanation of these doctrines in the Sūtrakṛtāṅga (l.c.), though less wordy, comes to the same; it does not, however, expressly ascribe them to Gosāla, the son of Makkhali.

The Jainas enumerate four principal schools of philosophy[32]: Kriyāvāda, Akriyāvāda, Ajñānavāda, and Vainayikavāda. The views of the Ajñānikas, or Agnostics, are not clearly stated in the texts, and the explanation of the commentators of all these philosophies which I have given in note[32], p. 83, is vague and misleading. But from Buddhist writings we may form a pretty correct idea of what Agnosticism was like. It is, according to the Sāmaññaphala Sutta, the doctrine of Sañjaya Belaṭṭhiputta, and is there stated in the following way[33]: ‘If you inquire of me whether there be a future state of being, I answer: If I experience a future state of existence, I will then explain the nature of that state. If they inquire, Is it after this manner? that is not my concern. Is it after that fashion? that is not my concern. Is it different from these? that is not my concern. Is it not? that is not my concern. No, is it not? It is no concern of mine.’ In the same way he e.g. refuses a definite answer to the questions whether the Tathāgata is after death, or is not; is and is not at the same time, is not nor is not at the same time. It is evident that the Agnostics examined all modes of expression of the existence or nonexistence of a thing, and if it were anything transcendental or beyond human experience, they negatived all those modes of expression.

The records of the Buddhists and Jainas about the philosophical ideas current at the time of the Buddha and Mahāvīra, meagre though they be, are of the greatest importance to the historian of that epoch. For they show us the ground on which, and the materials with which, a religious reformer had to build his system. The similarity between some of those ‘heretical’ doctrines on the one side, and Jaina or Buddhist ideas on the other, is very suggestive, and favours the assumption that the Buddha, as well as Mahāvīra, owed some of his conceptions to these very heretics, and formulated others under the influence of the controversies which were continually going on with them. Thus, I think, that in opposition to the Agnosticism of Sañjaya, Mahāvīra has established the Syādvāda. For as the Ajñānavāda declares that of a thing beyond our experience the existence, or non-existence or simultaneous existence and non-existence, can neither be affirmed nor denied, so in a similar way, but one leading to contrary results, the Syādvāda declares that ‘you can affirm the existence of a thing from one point of view (syād asti), deny it from another (syād nāsti); and affirm both existence and non-existence with reference to it at different times (syād asti nāsti). If you should think of affirming existence and non-existence at the same time from the same point of view, you must say that the thing cannot be spoken of (syād avaktavyaḥ). Similarly, under certain circumstances, the affirmation of existence is not possible (syād asti avaktavyaḥ); of non-existence (syān nāsti avaktavyaḥ); and also of both (syād asti nāsti avaktavyaḥ)[34].’

This is the famous Saptabhaṅgīnaya of the Jainas. Would any philosopher have enunciated such truisms, unless they served to silence some dangerous opponents? The subtle discussions of the Agnostics had probably bewildered and misled many of their contemporaries. Consequently the Syādvāda must have appeared to them as a happy way leading out of the maze of the Ajñānavāda. It was the weapon with which the Agnostics assailed the enemy, turned against themselves. Who knows how many of their followers went over to Mahāvīra’s creed convinced by the truth of the Saptabhaṅgīnaya!

We can trace, I imagine, the influence of Agnosticism also in the doctrine of the Buddha about the Nirvāṇa, as it is stated in Pāli books. Professor Oldenberg was the first to draw attention to the decisive passages which prove beyond the possibility of doubt that the Buddha declined answering the question whether the Tathāgata (i.e. the liberated soul, or rather principle of individuality) is after death or not. If the public of his time had not been accustomed to be told that some things, and those of the greatest interest, were beyond the ken of the human mind, and had not acquiesced in such answers, it certainly would not have lent a willing ear to a religious reformer who declined to speak out on what in Brahmanical philosophy is considered the end and goal of all speculations. As it is, Agnosticism seems to have prepared the way for the Buddhist doctrine of the Nirvāṇa[35]. It is worthy of note that in a dialogue between king Pasenadi and the nun Khemā, told in the Saṃyutta Nikāya, and translated by Oldenberg, the king puts his questions about the existence or non-existence of the Tathāgata after death in the same formulas which Sañjaya is made to use in the passage translated above from the Sāmaññaphala Sutta.

In support of my assumption that the Buddha was influenced by contemporary Agnosticism, I may adduce a tradition incorporated in the Mahāvagga I, 23 and 24. There we are told that the most distinguished pair of his disciples, Sāriputta and Moggalāna, had, previously to their conversion, been adherents of Sañjaya, and had brought over to Buddha 250 disciples of their former teacher. This happened not long after Buddha’s reaching Bodhi, i.e. at the very beginning of the new sect, when its founder must have been willing, in order to win pupils, to treat prevalent opinions with all due consideration.

The greatest influence on the development of Mahāvīra’s doctrines must, I believe, be ascribed to Gosāla, the son of Makkhali. A history of his life, contained in the Bhagavatī XV, I, has been briefly translated by Hoernle in the Appendix to his translation of the Uvāsaga Dasāo. It is there recorded that Gosāla lived six years together with Mahāvīra as his disciple, practising asceticism, but afterwards separated from him, started a Law of his own, and set up as a Jina, the leader of the Ājīvikas. The Buddhist records, however, speak of him as the successor of Nanda Vaccha and Kisa Saṃkicca, and of his sect, the acelaka paribbājakas, as a long-established order of monks. We have no reason to doubt the statement of the Jainas, that Mahāvīra and Gosāla for some time practised austerities together; but the relation between them probably was different from what the Jainas would have us believe. I suppose, and shall now bring forward some arguments in favour of my opinion, that Mahāvīra and Gosāla associated with the intention of combining their sects and fusing them into one. The fact that these two teachers lived together for a long period, presupposes, it would appear, some similarity between their opinions. I have already pointed out above, in the note on p. xxvi, that the expression sabbe sattā sabbe pāṇā sabbe bhūtā sabbe jīvā is common to both Gosāla and the Jainas, and from the commentary we learn that the division of animals into ekendriyas, dvīndriyas, &c., which is so common in Jaina texts, was also used by Gosāla. The curious and almost paradoxical Jaina doctrine of the six Leśyās closely resembles, as Professor Leumann was the first to perceive, Gosāla’s division of mankind into six classes; but in this particular I am inclined to believe that the Jainas borrowed the idea from the Ājīvikas and altered it so as to bring it into harmony with the rest of their own doctrines. With regard to the rules of conduct the collective evidence obtainable is such as to amount nearly to proof that Mahāvīra borrowed the more rigid rules from Gosāla. For as stated in the Uttarādhyayana XXIII, 13, p. 121, the Law of Pārśva allowed monks to wear an under and upper garment, but the Law of Vardhamāna forbade clothes. A term[36] for naked friar, frequently met with in the Jaina Sūtras, is acelaka, literally ‘unclothed.’ Now the Buddhists distinguish between Acelakas and Nigaṇṭhas; e.g. in Buddhaghosa’s commentary on the Dhammapadam[37] it is said of some Bhikkhus that they gave the preference to the Nigaṇṭhas before the Acelakas, because the latter are stark naked (sabbaso apaṭicchannā), while the Nigaṇṭhas use some sort of cover[38] ‘for the sake of decency,’ as was wrongly assumed by those Bhikkhus. The Buddhists denote by Acelaka the followers of Makkhali Gosāla and his two predecessors Kisa Saṃkicca and Nanda Vaccha, and have preserved an account of their religious practices in the Majjhima Nikāya 36. There Saccaka, the son of a Nigaṇṭha, whom we are already acquainted with, explains the meaning of kāyabhāvanā, bodily purity, by referring to the conduct of the Acelakas. Some details of Saccaka’s account are unintelligible in the absence of a commentary, but many are quite clear, and bear a close resemblance to well-known Jaina usages. Thus the Acelakas, like the Jaina monks, may not accept an invitation for dinner; they are forbidden food that is abhihaṭa or uddissakaṭa, which terms are, in all likelihood, identical with adhyāhṛta and auddeśika of the Jainas (see p. 132, note); they are not allowed to eat meat or to drink liquor. ‘Some beg only in one house and accept but one morsel of food, some in more up to seven; some live upon one donation of food, some on more up to seven.’ Similar to these are some practices of Jaina monks described in the Kalpa Sūtra, ‘Rules for Yatis,’ 26, part i, p. 300, and below, p. 176 f., verses 15 and 19. The following practice of the Acelakas is identically the same as that observed by the Jainas: ‘some eat but one meal every day, or every second day[39], &c., up to every half month.’ All the rules of the Acelakas are either identical with those of the Jainas or extremely like them, and dictated, so to say, by the same spirit. And still Saccaka does not quote the Nigaṇṭhas as a standard of ‘bodily purity,’ though he was the son of a Nigaṇṭha, and therefore must have known their religious practices. This curious fact may most easily be accounted for by our assuming that the original Nigaṇṭhas, of whom the Buddhist records usually speak, were not the section of the church, which submitted to the more rigid rules of Mahāvīra, but those followers of Pārśva, who, without forming a hostile party, yet continued, I imagine, to retain within the united church some particular usages of the old one[40]. As those rigid rules formed no part of the ancient creed, and Mahāvīra, therefore, must have introduced them, it is probable that he borrowed them from the Acelakas or Ājīvikas, the followers of Gosāla, with whom he is said to have lived in close companionship for six years practising austerities. We may regard Mahāvīra’s adoption of some religious ideas and practices of the Ājīvikas as concessions made to them in order to win over Gosāla and his disciples. This plan seems to have succeeded for some time; but at last the allied teachers quarrelled, it may be supposed, on the question who was to be the leader of the united sects. Mahāvīra’s position apparently was strengthened by his temporary association with Gosāla, but the latter seems to have lost by it, if we are to believe the account of the Jainas, and his tragic end must have been a severe blow to the prospects of his sect.

Mahāvīra probably borrowed much more from other sects than we shall ever be able to prove. It must have been easy to add new doctrines to the Jaina creed, as it scarcely forms a system in the true sense of the word. Each sect, or fraction of a sect, which was united with the Jaina church by the successful policy of Mahāvīra[41], may have brought with it some of its favourite speculations, and most probably its favourite saints too, who were recognised as Cakravartins or Tīrthakaras. This is, of course, a mere conjecture of mine; but it would account for the strange hagiology of the Jainas, and in the absence of any trace of direct evidence we are driven to rely upon guesses, and those deserve the preference which are the most plausible. For the rest, however, of the hypotheses which I have tried to establish in the preceding pages, I claim a higher degree of probability. For on the one hand I do no violence to the tradition of the Jainas, which in the absence of documents deserves most careful attention, and on the other, I assume but what under the given circumstances would have been most likely to happen. The cardinal feature in my construction of the early history of the Jaina church consists in my turning to account the alleged existence of followers of Pārśva in the time of Mahāvīra, a tradition which seems to be almost unanimously accepted by modern scholars.

If Jainism dates from an early period, and is older than Buddha and Mahāvīra, we may expect to find marks of its antiquity in the character of Jaina philosophy. Such a mark is the animistic belief that nearly everything is possessed of a soul; not only have plants their own souls, but particles of earth, cold water, fire, and wind also. Now ethnology teaches us that the animistic theory forms the basis of many beliefs that have been called the philosophy of savages; that it is more and more relinquished or changed into purer anthropomorphism as civilisation advances. If, therefore, Jaina ethics are for their greater part based on primitive animism, it must have extensively existed in large classes of Indian society when Jainism was first originated. This must have happened at a very early time, when higher forms of religious beliefs and cults had not yet, more generally, taken hold of the Indian mind.

Another mark of antiquity Jainism has in common with the oldest Brahmanical philosophies, Vedānta and Sāṅkhya. For at this early epoch in the development of metaphysics, the Category of Quality is not yet clearly and distinctly conceived, but it is just evolving, as it were, out of the Category of Substance: things which we recognise as qualities are constantly mistaken for and mixed up with substances. Thus in the Vedānta the highest Brahman is not possessed of pure existence, intellect, and joy as qualities of his nature, but Brahman is existence, intellect, and joy itself. In the Sāṅkhya the nature of puruṣa or soul is similarly defined as being intelligence or light; and the three guṇas are described as goodness, energy, and delusion, or light, colour, and darkness; yet these guṇas are not qualities in our sense of the word, but, as Professor Garbe adequately calls them, constituents of primitive matter. It is quite in accordance with this way of thinking that the ancient Jaina texts usually speak only of substances, dravyas, and their development or modifications, paryāyas; and when they mention guṇas, qualities, besides, which however is done but rarely in the Sūtras and regularly in comparatively modern books only, this seems to be a later innovation due to the influence which the philosophy and terminology of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika gradually gained over the scientific thoughts of the Hindus. For at the side of paryāya, development or modification, there seems to be no room for an independent category ‘quality,’ since paryāya is the state in which a thing, dravya, is at any moment of its existence, and this must, therefore, include qualities, as seems to be actually the view embodied in the oldest text. Another instance of the Jainas applying the category ‘substance’ to things which are beyond its sphere, and come rather under that of quality,' is seen in their treating merit and demerit, dharma and adharma, as kinds of substances with which the soul comes into contact[42]; for they are regarded as coextensive with the world, not unlike space, which even the Vaiśeṣikas count as a substance. If the categories of substance and quality had already been clearly distinguished from one another, and had been recognised as correlative terms, as they are in Vaiśeṣika philosophy (which defines substance as the substratum of qualities, and quality as that which is inherent in substance), Jainism would almost certainly not have adopted such confused ideas as those just expounded.

From the preceding remarks it will be evident that I do not agree with Bhandarkar[43], who claims a late origin for Jainism, because, on some points, it entertains the same views as the Vaiśeṣika. The Vaiśeṣika philosophy may be briefly described as a philosophical treatment and systematical arrangement of those general concepts and ideas which were incorporated in the language, and formed therefore the mental property common to all who spoke or knew Sanskrit. The first attempts to arrive at such a natural philosophy may have been made at an early epoch; but the perfection of the system, as taught in the aphorisms of Kaṇāda, could not be reached till after many centuries of patient mental labour and continuous philosophical discussion. In the interval between the origin and the final establishment of the system those borrowings may have taken place of which, rightly or wrongly, the Jainas may be accused. I must, however, remark that Bhandarkar believes the Jainas to hold, on the points presently to be discussed, a view ‘which is of the nature of a compromise between the Sāṅkhyas and the Vedāntins on the one hand and the Vaiśeṣika on the other.’ But for our discussion it makes no difference whether direct borrowing or a compromise between two conflicting views be assumed. The points in question are the following: (1) both Jainism and Vaiśeṣika embrace the Kriyāvāda, i.e. they maintain that the soul is directly affected by actions, passions, &c.; (2) both advocate the doctrine of asatkārya, i.e. that the product is different from its material cause, while the Vedanta and Sāṅkhya hold that they are the same (satkārya); (g) that they distinguish qualities from their substratum (d navy a). The latter item has been discussed above; we have to deal, therefore, with the first two only. It will be seen that the opinions under (1) and (2) are the common-sense views; for that we are directly affected by passions, and that the product is different from its cause, e.g. the tree from the seed, will always and everywhere be the primā facie conclusion of an unbiassed mind, or rather will appear as the simple statement of what common experience teaches. Such opinions cannot be regarded as characteristic marks of a certain philosophy, and their occurrence in another system need not be explained by the assumption of borrowing. The case would be different if a paradoxical opinion were found in two different schools; for a paradoxical opinion is most likely the product of but one school, and, when once established, it may be adopted by another. But such opinions of the Vaiśeṣika, as are the result of a peculiar train of reasoning, e.g. that space (diś) and air (ākāśa) are two separate substances, do not recur in Jainism. For in it, as well as in the older Brahmanical systems, Vedānta and Sāṅkhya, space and air are not yet distinguished from one another, but ākāśa is made to serve for both.

Some other instances of difference in fundamental doctrines between Vaiśeṣikas and Jainas are, that according to the former the souls are infinite and all-pervading, while to the latter they are of limited dimensions, and that the Vaiśeṣikas make dharma and adharma qualities of the soul, while, as has been said above, the Jainas look on them as a sort of substances. In one point, however, there is some resemblance between a paradoxical Vaiśeṣika opinion and a distinct Jaina doctrine. According to the Vaiśeṣika there are four kinds of bodies: bodies of earth, as those of men, animals, &c.; bodies of water in the world of Varuṇa; bodies of fire in the world of Agni; and bodies of wind in the world of Vāyu. This curious opinion has its counterpart in Jainism; for the Jainas, too, assume Earth-bodies, Water-bodies, Fire-bodies, and Wind-bodies. However, these elementary bodies are the elements or the most minute particles of them, inhabited by particular souls. This hylozoistic doctrine is, as I have said above, the outcome of primitive animism, while the Vaiśeṣika opinion, though probably derived from the same current of thought, is an adaptation of it to popular mythology. I make no doubt that the Jaina opinion is much more primitive and belongs to an older stage in the development of philosophical thought than the Vaiśeṣika assumption of four kinds of bodies.

Though I am of opinion that between Vaiśeṣika and Jainism no such connection existed as could be proved by borrowings of the one system from the other, still I am ready to admit that they are related to each other by a kind of affinity of ideas. For the fundamental ideas of the Vedāntins and Sāṅkhyas go directly counter to those of the Jainas, and the latter could not adopt them without breaking with their religion. But they could go a part of their way together with the Vaiśeṣika, and still retain their religious persuasion. We need, therefore, not wonder that among the writers on the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika some names of Jainas occur. The Jainas themselves go still farther, and maintain that the Vaiśeṣika philosophy was established by a schismatical teacher of theirs, Chaluya Rohagutta of the Kauśika Gotra, with whom originated the sixth schism of the Jainas, the Trairāśika-matam, in 544 A. V.[44] (18 A. D.) The details of this system given in the Āvaśyaka, vv. 77-83, are apparently reproduced from Kaṇāda’s Vaiśeṣika Darśana; for they consist in the enumeration of the six (not seven) categories with their subdivisions, among which that of qualities contains but seventeen items (not twenty-four), and those identical with Vaiśeṣika Darśana I, 1, 6.

I believe that in this case, as in many others, the Jainas claim more honour than is their due in connecting every Indian celebrity with the history of their creed. My reason for doubting the correctness of the above Jaina legend is the following. The Vaiśeṣika philosophy is reckoned as one of the orthodox Brahmanical philosophies, and it has chiefly, though not exclusively, been cultivated by orthodox Hindus. We have, therefore, no reason for doubting that they have misstated the name and Gotra of the author of the Sūtras, viz. Kaṇāda of the Kāśyapa Gotra. No trace has been found in Brahmanical literature that the name of the real author of the Vaiśeṣika was Rohagupta, and his Gotra the Kauśika Gotra; nor can Rohagupta and Kaṇāda be taken as different names of the same person, because their Gotras also differ. Kāṇāda, follower of Kaṇāda, means etymologically crow-eater, owl; hence his system has been nicknamed Aulūkya Darśana, owl-philosophy[45]. In Rohagupta’s second name, Chuluya, which stands for Ṣaḍulūka[46], allusion is made to the ‘owl,’ probably to the Kāṇādas; but the Jainas refer ulūka to the Gotra of the Rohagupta, viz. Kauśika[47], which word also means owl. As the unanimous tradition of the Brahmans deserves the preference before that of the Jainas, we can most easily account for the latter by assuming that Rohagupta did not invent, but only adopted the Vaiśeṣika philosophy to support his schismatical views.

About the two works translated in this volume, the Uttarādhyayana and Sūtrakṛtāṅga, I have little to add to the remarks of Professor Weber in the Indische Studien, vol. xvi, p. 259 ff., and vol. xvii, p. 43 ff. The Sūtrakṛtāṅga is probably the older of the two, as it is the second Aṅga, and the Aṅgas obtain the foremost rank among the canonical books of the Jainas, while the Uttarādhyayana, the first Mūlasūtra, belongs to the last section of the Siddhānta. According to the summary in the fourth Aṅga the object of the Sūtrakṛtāṅga is to fortify young monks against the heretical opinions of alien teachers, to confirm them in the right faith, and to lead them to the highest good. This description is correct on the whole, but not exhaustive, as will be seen by going over our table of contents. The work opens with the refutation of heretical doctrines, and the same object is again treated at greater length in the First Lecture of the Second Book. It is followed in the First Book by Lectures on a holy life in general, on the difficulties a monk has to overcome, especially the temptations thrown in his way, the punishment of the unholy, and the praise of Mahāvīra as the standard of righteousness. Then come some Lectures on cognate subjects. The Second Book, which is almost entirely in prose, treats of similar subjects, but without any apparent connection of its parts. It may therefore be considered as supplementary, and as a later addition to the First Book. The latter was apparently intended as a guide for young monks[48]. Its form, too, seems adapted to this purpose; for it lays some claim to poetical art in the variety of the metres employed, and in the artificial character of some verses. It may, therefore, be considered as the composition of one author, while the Second Book is a collection of tracts which treat on the subjects discussed in the first.

The Uttarādhyayana resembles the Sūtrakṛtāṅga with regard to its object and part of the subjects treated; but it is of greater extent than the original part of the Sūtrakṛtāṅga, and the plan of the work is carried out with more skill. Its intention is to instruct a young monk in his principal duties, to commend an ascetic life by precepts and examples, to warn him against the dangers in his spiritual career, and to give some theoretical information. The heretical doctrines are only occasionally alluded to, not fully discussed; apparently the dangers expected from that quarter grew less in the same measure as time advanced and the institutions of the sect were more firmly established. Of more importance to a young monk seems to have been an accurate knowledge of animate and inanimate things, as a rather long treatise on this subject has been added at the end of the book.--Though there is an apparent plan in the selection and arrangement of the single Lectures, still it is open to doubt whether they were all composed by one author, or only selected from the traditional literature, written or oral, which among the Jainas, as everywhere else, must have preceded the formation of a canon. I am inclined to adopt the latter alternative, because there is a greater variety of treatment and style in the different parts than seems compatible with the supposition of one author, and because a similar origin must be assumed for many works of the present canon.

At what time the works under discussion were composed or brought into their present shape is a problem which cannot be satisfactorily solved. As, however, the reader of the present volume will naturally expect the translator to give expression to his personal conviction on this point, I give my opinion with all reserve, viz. that most parts, tracts, or treatises of which the canonical books consist, are old; that the redaction of the Aṅgas took place at an early period (tradition places it under Bhadrabāhu); that the other works of the Siddhānta were collected in course of time, probably in the first centuries before our era, and that additions or alterations may have been made in the canonical works till the time of their first edition under Devardhigaṇin (980 AV. = 454 A. D.)

I have based my translation of the Uttarādhyayana and Sūtrakṛtāṅga on the text adopted by the oldest commentators I could consult. This text differs little from that of the MSS. and the printed editions. I had prepared a text of my own from some MSS. at my disposal, and this has served to check the printed text.

The Calcutta edition of the Uttarādhyayana (Saṃvat 1936 = 1879 A. D.) contains, besides a Guzeratī gloss, the Sūtradīpikā of Lakṣmīvallabha, pupil of Lakṣmīkīrtigaṇin of the Kharatara Gaccha. Older than this commentary is the Ṭīkā of Devendra, which I have made my principal guide. It was composed in Saṃvat 1179 or 1123 A. D., and is confessedly an abstract from Śāntyācārya’s Vṛtti, which I have not used. But I have had at my disposal an illuminated old MS. of the Avacūri, belonging to the Strassburg University Library. This work is apparently an abstract from the Vṛtti of Śāntyācārya, as in a great many passages it almost verbally agrees with Devendra’s work.

The Bombay edition of the Sūtrakṛtāṅga (Saṃvat 1936 or 1880 A. D.) contains three commentaries: (1) Śīlāṅka’s Ṭīkā, in which is incorporated Bhadrabāhu’s Niryukti. This is the oldest commentary extant; but it was not without predecessors, as Śīlāṅka occasionally alludes to old commentators. Śīlāṅka lived in the second half of the ninth century A. D., as he is said to have finished his commentary on the Ācārāṅga Sūtra in the Śaka year 798 or 876 A. D. (2) The Dīpika, an abstract from the last by Harshakula, which was composed in Saṃvat 1583 or 1517 AḌ. I have also used a MS. of the Dīpika in my possession. (3) Pāśacandra’s Bālāvabodha, a Guzeratī gloss.--My principal guide was, of course, Śīlāṅka; when he and Harshakula agree, I refer to them in my notes as the ‘commentators;’ I name Śīlāṅka when his remark in question has been omitted by Harshakula, and I quote the latter when he gives some original matter of interest. I may add that one of my MSS. is covered with marginal and interlinear glosses which have now and then given me some help in ascertaining the meaning of the text.

H. JACOBI.

BONN:
November, 1894.

Additional note:

I may here add a remark on the Parable of the Three Merchants, see p. 29 f., which agrees with Matthew xxv. 14 and Luke xix. 11. It seems, however, to have had a still greater resemblance to the version of the parable in The Gospel according to the Hebrews, as will appear from the following passage from Eusebius’ Theophania (ed. Migne’s Patrologia Graeca, iv. 155), translated by Nicholson, ‘The Gospel according to the Hebrews (London, 1879): The Gospel, which comes to us in Hebrew characters, has directed the threat not against the hider, but against the abandoned liver. For it has included three servants, one which devoured the substance with harlots and flute-women, one which multiplied, and one which hid the talent: one was accepted, one only blamed, and one shut up in prison.’ I owe this quotation to my colleague Arnold Meyer.

Taking into consideration (1) that the Jaina version contains only the essential elements of the parable, which in the Gospels are developed into a full story; and (2) that it is expressly stated in the Uttarādhyayana VII, 15 that ‘this parable is taken from common life,’ I think it probable that the Parable of the Three Merchants was invented in India, and not in Palestine.

H. J.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Das Aupapātika Sūtra, in the Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, vol. viii; and Daśavaikālika Sūtra und Niryukti, in the Journal of the German Oriental Society, vol. xlvi.

[2]:

The Uvāsaga Dasāo: (in the Bibliotheca Indica), vol. i. Text and Commentary, Calcutta, 1890; vol. ii. Translation, 1888.

[3]:

Berlin, 1888 and 1892.

[4]:

In the Indische Studien, vol. xvi, p. 211 ff., and xvii, p. 1 ff.; translated in the Indian Antiquary and edited separately, Bombay, 1893.

[5]:

In the Actes du VI Congrès International des Orientalistes, section Arienne, p. 469 ff., in the 5th and 6th vols. of the Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, and in the 48th vol. of the Journal of the German Oriental Society.

[6]:

The Pariśiṣṭaparvan by Hemacandra, Bibliotheca Indica.

[7]:

Denkschriften der philos.-histor. Classe der kaiserl. Akademie der Wissenschaften, vol. xxxvii, p. 171 ff.

[8]:

Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, vols. ii and iii. Epigraphia Indica, vols. i and ii.

[9]:

Bangalore, 1889.

[10]:

The Religions of India. Bulletin des Religions de l’Inde, 1889-94.

[11]:

Über die indische Secte der Jaina. Wien, 1887.

[12]:

Report for 1883-84.

[13]:

Nigaṇṭha is apparently the original form of the word, since it is thus spelled in the Aśoka inscription, in Pāli, and occasionally by the Jainas, though the phonetic laws of all three idioms would have given preference to the form niggantha, the more frequent spelling in Jaina works.

[14]:

There are apparently two persons of this name. The other Abhaya, a son of king Sreṇika, was a patron of the Jainas, and is frequently mentioned in their legends and in the canonical books. In the Majjhima Nikāya 58 (Abhayakumāra Sutta) it is related that the Nigaṇṭha Nātaputta made him engage in a disputation with Buddha. The question was so adroitly framed that whether the answer was Yes or No, it involved Buddha in self-contradiction. But the plan did not succeed, and Abhaya was converted by Buddha. There is nothing in this account to elucidate the doctrines of Nātaputta.

[15]:

The name Sīha occurs in the Bhagavatī (Calcutta edition, p. 1267, see Hoernle, Uvāsaga Dasāo Appendix, p. 10) as that of a disciple of Mahāvīra; but as he was a monk, he cannot be identified with his namesake in the Mahāvagga.

[16]:

Sumaṅgala Vilāsinī, p. 119 of the Pali Text Society edition.

[17]:

Page 57 of the edition in the Pali Text Society.

[18]:

The translations of Gogerly and of Burnouf in Grimblot, Sept Suttas Pālis, were made without the help of a commentary, and may, therefore, be passed by. It is, however, open to doubt whether Buddhaghosa has drawn his information from genuine tradition, or had to rely on conjectures of his own.

[19]:

See my paper, 'On Mahāvīra and his Predecessors,' in the Indian Antiquary, IX, 158 ff., where some of the above problems have been treated.

[20]:

In the Rājapraśnī Pārśva has a discussion with king Paesi and converts him, see Actes du VI Congrès International des Orientalistes, vol. iii, P. 490 ff.

[21]:

See my paper on the origin of the Śvetāmbara and Digambara sects in the Journal of the German Oriental Society, vol. xxxviii, p. 1 ff.

[22]:

Sāmaññaphala Sutta, Dīgha Nikāya II, 20.

[23]:

Sumaṅgala Vilāsinī, p. 162. Buddhaghosa expressly states that Gosāla reckoned the Nigaṇṭhas lower than his own lay disciples, who form the fourth class.--As Buddhaghosa does not take umbrage at Gosāla’s reckoning the Bhikkhus still lower, it is clear that he did not identify the Bhikkhus with the Buddhist monks.

[24]:

See p. 250 of the Pali Text Society edition.

[25]:

Ākāśa; it is not reckoned as a fifth element in the Buddhist account, but it is so in that of the Jainas, see below, p. 343, and p. 237, verse 15. This is a verbal, rather than a material difference.

[26]:

I put here the original texts side by side so that their likeness may be more obvious:

[27]:

Loc. cit., p. 56.

[28]:

It is worthy of remark that the Vedāntists play no conspicuous part, if any, among Buddha’s opponents. As they were, however, the foremost of Brahmanical philosophers, we must conclude that Brahmans of learning held aloof from the classes of society to which the new religion appealed.

[29]:

Page 345 f., see also p. 239.

[30]:

Grimblot, Sept Suttas Pālis, p. 170.

[31]:

In the original: sabbe sattā, sabbe pāṇā, sabbe bhūtā, sabbe jīvā. The same enumeration frequently occurs in Jaina Sūtras, and has, in my translation, been abbreviated in all classes of living beings.' Buddhaghosa’s explanation has been thus rendered by Hoernle, Uvāsaga Dasāo, Appendix II, p. 16: 'In the term all beings (sabbe sattā) he comprises camels, oxen, asses, and other animals without exception. The term all sensive beings (sabbe pāṇā) he uses to denote those with one sense, those with two senses, and so forth. The term all generated beings (sabbe bhūtā) he uses with reference to those that are generated or produced from an egg or from the womb. The term all living beings (sabbe jīvā) he uses with reference to rice, barley, wheat, and so forth; in these he conceives that there is life, because it is their nature to grow.'

[32]:

See pp. 83, 291, 316, 385.

[33]:

Grimblot, l.c., p. 174.

[34]:

Bhandarkar, Report for 1883-4, p. 95 f.

[35]:

The reticence of Buddha on the nature of the Nirvāṇa may have been wise at his time; but it was fraught with very important results for the development of the church. For his followers, having to hold their own against such split-hair dialecticians as the Brahmanical philosophers, were almost driven to enunciate more explicit ideas about the great problem which the founder of the church had left unsolved. The tendency to supply the crowning stone to an edifice which appeared to have been left unfinished by the hand of the master, led to the division of the community into numerous p. xxix sects soon after the Nirvāṇa of Buddha. We need not wonder therefore that in Ceylon, which is at such a distance from the centre of Brahmanical learning, Buddhists could retain the doctrine of the Nirvāṇa in its original form.

[36]:

Another term is Jinakalpika, which may be rendered: adopting the standard of the Jinas. The Svetāmbaras say that the Jinakalpa was early replaced by the Sthavirakalpa, which allows the use of clothes.

[37]:

Fausböll’s edition, p. 398.

[38]:

The words sesakam purimasamappitā va paticchādenti are not quite clear, but the contrast leaves no doubt about what is meant. Sesaka is, I believe, the Pāli for śiśnaka. If this is right, the above words may be translated: 'they cover the pudenda wearing (a cloth) about the forepart (of their body).'

[39]:

These fasts are called by the Jainas cautthabhatta, khaṭṭhabhatta, &c. (see e.g. Aupapātika Sūtra, ed. Leumann, § 30 I A); and monks observing them, cautthabhattiya, chaṭṭhabhattiya, &c. (see e.g. Kalpa Sūtra, 'Rules for Yatis,' § 21 ff.)

[40]:

As I have said above and in note 2. p. 119, this difference has probably given rise to the division of the church into Svetāmbaras and Digambaras. But these two branches have not directly grown out of the party of Pārśva and that of Mahāvīra; for both recognise Mahāvīra as a Tīrthakara.

[41]:

Mahāvīra must have been a great man in his way, and an eminent leader among his contemporaries; he owed the position of a Tīrthakara probably not so much to the sanctity of his life, as to his success in propagating his creed.

[42]:

That this was the primitive conception of the Vedic Hindus has been noted by Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda, p. 317 f.

[43]:

See his Report for 1883-84., p. 116 f.

[44]:

See Indische Studien, vol. xvii, p. 116 ff.

[45]:

See my edition of the Kalpa Sūtra, p. 119.

[46]:

Literally Six-owl. The number six refers to the six categories of the Vaiśeṣika.

[47]:

Part i, p. 290. But in the legend translated by Professor Leumann, l.c., p. 121, his Gotra is called Chaūlū.

[48]:

According to an old tradition (see Indische Studien, vol. xvi, p. 223) the Sūtrakṛtāṅga is studied in the fourth year after the ordination of a monk.

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