Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) by Charles Eliot

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2

According to the Jain scriptures all Jinas are born in the warrior
caste, never among Brahmans. The first called Rishabha, who was born an
almost inexpressibly[263] long time ago and lived 8,400,000 years, was
the son of a king of Ayodhya. But as ages elapsed, the lives of his
successors and the intervals which separated them became shorter.
Parsva, the twenty-third Jina, must have some historical basis[264]. We
are told that he lived 250 years before Mahavira, that his followers
still existed in the time of the latter: that he permitted the use of
clothes and taught that four and not five vows were necessary[265]. Both
Jain and Buddhist scriptures support the idea that Mahavira was a
reviver and reformer rather than an originator. The former do not
emphasize the novelty of his revelation and the latter treat Jainism as
a well-known form of error without indicating that it was either new or
attributable to one individual.

Mahavira, or the great hero, is the common designation of the
twenty-fourth Jina but his personal name was Vardhamana. He was a
contemporary of the Buddha but somewhat older and belonged to a
Kshatriya clan, variously called Jnata, Nata, or Naya. His parents lived
in a suburb of Vaisali and were followers of Parsva. When he was in his
thirty-first year they decided to die by voluntary starvation and after
their death he renounced the world and started to wander naked in
western Bengal, enduring some persecution as well as self-inflicted
penances. After thirteen years of this life, he believed that he had
attained enlightenment and appeared as the Jina, the head of a religious
order called Nirganthas (or Niganthas). This word, which means
unfettered or free from bonds, is the name by which the Jains are
generally known in Buddhist literature and it occurs in their own
scriptures, though it gradually fell out of use. Possibly it was the
designation of an order claiming to have been founded by Parsva and
accepted by Mahavira.

The meagre accounts of his life relate that he continued to travel for
nearly thirty years and had eleven principal disciples. He apparently
influenced much the same region as the Buddha and came in contact with
the same personalities, such as kings Bimbisara and Ajatasattu. He had
relations with Makkhali Gosala and his disciples disputed with the
Buddhists[266] but it does not appear that he himself ever met Gotama.
He died at the age of seventy-two at Pava near Rajagaha. Only one of his
principal disciples, Sudharman, survived him and a schism broke out
immediately after his death. There had already been one in the fifteenth
year of his teaching brought about by his son-in-law.

3

We have no information about the differences on which these schisms
turned, but Jainism is still split into two sects which, though
following in most respects identical doctrines and customs, refuse to
intermarry or eat together. Their sacred literature is not the same and
the evidence of inscriptions indicates that they were distinct at the
beginning of the Christian era and perhaps much earlier.

The Digambara sect, or those who are clothed in air, maintain that
absolute nudity is a necessary condition of saintship: the other
division or Svetambaras, those who are dressed in white, admit that
Mahavira went about naked, but hold that the use of clothes does not
impede the highest sanctity, and also that such sanctity can be attained
by women, which the Digambaras deny. Nudity as a part of asceticism was
practised by several sects in the time of Mahavira[267] but it was also
reprobated by others (including all Buddhists) who felt it to be
barbarous and unedifying. It is therefore probable that both Digambaras
and Svetambaras existed in the infancy of Jainism, and the latter may
represent the older sect reformed or exaggerated by Mahavira. Thus we
are told[268] that "the law taught by Vardhamana forbids clothes but
that of the great sage Parsva allows an under and an upper garment." But
it was not until considerably later that the schism was completed by the
constitution of two different canons[269]. At the present day most
Digambaras wear the ordinary costume of their district and only the
higher ascetics attempt to observe the rule of nudity. When they go
about they wrap themselves in a large cloth, but lay it aside when
eating. The Digambaras are divided into four principal sects and the
Svetambaras into no less than eighty-four, which are said to date from
the tenth century A.D.

Apart from these divisions, all Jain communities are differentiated into
laymen and members of the order or Yatis, literally strivers. It is
recognized that laymen cannot observe the five vows. Killing, lying, and
stealing are forbidden to them only in their obvious and gross forms:
chastity is replaced by conjugal fidelity and self-denial by the
prohibition of covetousness. They can also acquire merit by observing
seven other miscellaneous vows (whence we hear of the twelvefold law)
comprising rules as to residence, trade, etc. Agriculture is forbidden
since it involves tearing up the ground and the death of insects.

Mahavira was succeeded by a long line of teachers sometimes called
Patriarchs and it would seem that their names have been correctly
preserved though the accounts of their doings are meagre. Various
notices in Buddhist literature confirm the idea that the Jains were
active in the districts corresponding to Oudh, Tirhut and Bihar in the
period following Mahavira's death, and we hear of them in Ceylon before
our era. Further historical evidence is afforded by inscriptions[270].
The earliest in which the Jains are mentioned are the edicts of Asoka.
He directed the officials called "superintendents of religion" to
concern themselves with the Niganthas[271]: and when [272] he describes
how he has provided medicine, useful plants and wells for both men and
animals, we are reminded of the hospitals for animals which are still
maintained by the Jains. According to Jain tradition (which however has
not yet been verified by other evidence) Samprati, the grandson of
Asoka, was a devout patron of the faith. More certain is the patronage
accorded to it by King Kharavela of Orissa about 157 B.C. which is
attested by inscriptions. Many dedicatory inscriptions prove that the
Jains were a flourishing community at Muttra in the reigns of Kanishka,
Huvishka and Vasudeva and one inscription from the same locality seems
as old as 150 B.C. We learn from these records that the sect comprised a
great number of schools and subdivisions. We need not suppose that the
different teachers were necessarily hostile to one another but their
existence testifies to an activity and freedom of interpretation which
have left traces in the multitude of modern subsects.

Jainism also spread in the south of India and before our era it had a
strong hold in Tamil lands, but our knowledge of its early progress is
defective. According to Jain tradition there was a severe famine in
northern India about 200 years after Mahavira's death and the patriarch
Bhadrabahu led a band of the faithful to the south[273]. In the seventh
century A.D. we know from various records of the reign of Harsha and
from the Chinese pilgrim Hsuean Chuang that it was nourishing in Vaisali
and Bengal and also as far south as Conjeevaram. It also made
considerable progress in the southern Maratha country under the Calukya
dynasty of Vatapi, in the modern district of Bijapur (500-750) and under
the Rashtrakuta sovereigns of the Deccan. Amoghavarsha of this line
(815-877) patronized the Digambaras and in his old age abdicated and
became an ascetic. The names of notable Digambara leaders like Jinasena
and Gunabhadra dating from this period are preserved and Jainism must in
some districts have become the dominant religion. Bijjala who usurped
the Calukya throne (1156-1167) was a Jain and the Hoysala kings of
Mysore, though themselves Vaishnavas, protected the religion.
Inscriptions[274] appear to attest the presence of Jainism at Girnar in
the first century A.D. and subsequently Gujarat became a model Jain
state after the conversion of King Kumarapala about 1160.

Such success naturally incurred the enmity of the Brahmans and there is
more evidence of systematic persecution directed against the Jains than
against the Buddhists. The Cola kings who ruled in the south-east of the
Madras Presidency were jealous worshippers of Siva and the Jains
suffered severely at their hands in the eleventh century and also under
the Pandya kings of the extreme south. King Sundara of the latter
dynasty is said to have impaled 8000 of them and pictures on the walls
of the great temple at Madura represent their tortures. A little later
(1174) Ajayadeva, a Saiva king of Gujarat, is said to have raged against
them with equal fury. The rise of the Lingayats in the Deccan must also
have had an unfavourable effect on their numbers. But in the fourteenth
century greater tolerance prevailed, perhaps in consequence of the
common danger from Islam. Inscriptions found at Sravana Belgola and
other places[275] narrate an interesting event which occurred in 1368.
The Jains appealed to the king of Vijayanagar for protection from
persecution and he effected a public reconciliation between them and the
Vaishnavas, holding the hands of both leaders in his own and declaring
that equal protection would be given to both sects. Another inscription
records an amicable agreement regulating the worship of a lingam in a
Jain temple at Halebid. Many others, chiefly recording grants of land,
testify to the prosperity of Jainism in the Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagar
and in the region of Mt Abu in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries[276]. The great Emperor Akbar himself came under the influence
of Jainism and received instruction from three Jain teachers from 1578
to 1597.

Persecution and still more the steady pressure and absorptive power of
Hinduism have reduced the proportions of the sect, and the last census
estimated it at one million and a third. It is probable, however, that
many Jains returned themselves as Hindus, and that their numbers are
really greater. More than two-fifths of them are found in Bombay,
Rajputana, and Central India. Elsewhere they are generally distributed
but only in small numbers. They observe caste, at least in some
districts, and generally belong to the Baniyas. They include many
wealthy merchants who expend large sums on the construction and
maintenance of temples, houses for wandering ascetics and homes for
cattle. Their respect and care for animal life are remarkable. Wherever
Jains gain influence beasts are not slaughtered or sacrificed, and when
old or injured are often kept in hospitals or asylums, as, for instance,
at Ahmadabad[277]. Their ascetics take stringent precautions to avoid
killing the smallest creature: they strain their drinking water, sweep
the ground before them with a broom as they walk and wear a veil over
their mouths. Even in the shops of the laity lamps are carefully
screened to prevent insects from burning themselves.

The principal divisions are the Digambara and Svetambara as above
described and an offshoot of the latter called Dhundia[278] who refuse
to use images in worship and are remarkable even among Jains for their
aversion to taking life. In Central India the Digambaras are about half
the total number; in Baroda and Bombay the Svetambaras are stronger. In
Central India the Jains are said to be sharply distinguished from Hindus
but in other parts they intermarry with Vaishnavas and while respecting
their own ascetics as religious teachers, employ the services of
Brahmans in their ceremonies.

4

The Jains have a copious and in part ancient literature. The oldest
works are found in the canon (or Siddhanta) of the Svetambaras, which is
not accepted by the Digambaras. In this canon the highest rank is given
to eleven works[279] called Angas or limbs of the law but it also
comprises many other esteemed treatises such as the Kalpasutra ascribed
to Bhadrabahu. Fourteen older books called Puvvas (Sk. Purvas) and now
lost are said to have together formed a twelfth anga. The language of
the canon is a variety of Prakrit[280], fairly ancient though more
modern than Pali, and remarkable for its habit of omitting or softening
consonants coming between two vowels, _e.g._ suyam for sutram, loo for
loko[281]. We cannot, however, conclude that it is the language in which
the books were composed, for it is probable that the early Jains,
rejecting Brahmanical notions of a revealed text, handed down their
religious teaching in the vernacular and allowed its grammar and
phonetics to follow the changes brought about by time. According to a
tradition which probably contains elements of truth the first collection
of sacred works was made about 200 years after Mahavira's death by a
council which sat at Pataliputra. Just about the same time came the
famine already mentioned and many Jains migrated to the south. When they
returned they found that their co-religionists had abandoned the
obligation of nakedness and they consequently refused to recognize their
sacred books. The Svetambara canon was subsequently revised and written
down by a council held at Valabhi in Gujarat in the middle of the fifth
century A.D. This is the edition which is still extant. The canon of the
Digambaras, which is less well known, is said to be chiefly in Sanskrit
and according to tradition was codified by Pushpadanta in the second
century A.D. but appears to be really posterior to the Svetambara
scriptures[282]. It is divided into four sections called Vedas and
treating respectively of history, cosmology, philosophy and rules of
life[283].

Though the books of the Jain canon contain ancient matter, yet they
seem, as compositions, considerably later than the older parts of the
Buddhist Tripitaka. They do not claim to record recent events and
teaching but are attempts at synthesis which assume that Jainism is well
known and respected. In style they offer some resemblance to the
Pitakas: there is the same inordinate love of repetition and in the more
emotional passages great similarity of tone and metaphor[284].

Besides the two canons, the Jains have a considerable literature
consisting both of commentaries and secular works. The most eminent of
their authors is Hemacandra, born in 1088, who though a monk was an
ornament of the court and rendered an important service to his sect by
converting Kumarapala, King of Gujarat. He composed numerous and
valuable works on grammar, lexicography, poetics and ecclesiastical
biography. Such subjects were congenial to the later Jain writers and
they not only cultivated both Sanskrit and Prakrit but also had a
vivifying effect on the vernaculars of southern India. Kanarese, Tamil,
and Telugu in their literary form owe much to the labours of Jain monks,
and the Jain works composed in these languages, such as the
Jivakacintamani in Tamil, if not of world-wide importance, at least
greatly influenced Dravidian civilization.

Though the Jains thus occupy an honourable, and even distinguished place
in the history of letters it must be confessed that it is hard to praise
their older religious books. This literature is of considerable
scientific interest for it contains many data about ancient India as yet
unsifted but it is tedious in style and rarely elevated in sentiment. It
has an arid extravagance, which merely piles one above the other
interminable lists of names and computations of immensity in time and
space. Even more than in the Buddhist suttas there is a tendency to
repetition which offends our sense of proportion and though the main
idea, to free the soul from the trammels of passion and matter, is not
inferior to any of the religious themes of India, the treatment is not
adequate to the subject and the counsels of perfection are smothered
under a mass of minute precepts about the most unsavoury details of life
and culminate in the recommendation of death by voluntary starvation.

5

But observation of Jainism as it exists to-day produces a quite
different impression. The Jains are well-to-do, industrious and
practical: their schools and religious establishments are well ordered:
their temples have a beauty, cleanliness, and cheerfulness unusual in
India and due to the large use made of white marble and brilliant
colours. The tenderness for animal life may degenerate into superstition
(though surely it is a fault on the right side) and some observances of
the ascetics (such as pulling out the hair instead of shaving the head)
are severe, but as a community the Jains lead sane and serious lives,
hardly practising and certainly not parading the extravagances of
self-torture which they theoretically commend. Mahavira is said to have
taught that place, time and occasion should be taken into consideration
and his successors adapted their precepts to the age in which they
lived. Such monks as I have met[285] maintained that extreme forms of
_tapas_ were good for the nerves of ancient saints but not for the
weaker natures of to-day. But in avoiding rigorous severity, they have
not fallen into sloth or luxury.

The beauty of Jainism finds its best expression in architecture. This
reached its zenith both in style and quantity during the eleventh and
twelfth centuries which accords with what we know of the growth of the
sect. After this period the Mohammedan invasions were unfavourable to
all forms of Hindu architecture. But the taste for building remained and
somewhat later pious Jains again began to construct large edifices which
are generally less degenerate than modern Hindu temples, though they
often show traces of Mohammedan influence. Hathi Singh's temple at
Ahmadabad completed in 1848 is a fine example of this modern style.

There is a considerable difference between Jain and Buddhist
architecture both in intention and effect. Jain monks did not live
together in large communities and there was no worship of relics. Hence
the vihara and the stupa--the two principal types of Buddhist
buildings--are both absent. Yet there is some resemblance between Jain
temples (for instance those at Palitana) and the larger Burmese
sanctuaries, such as the Shwe Dagon Pagoda. It is partly due to the same
conviction, namely that the most meritorious work which a layman can
perform is to multiply shrines and images. In both localities the
general plan is similar. On the top of a hill or mound is a central
building round which are grouped a multitude of other shrines. The
repetition of chapels and images is very remarkable: in Burma they all
represent Gotama, in Jain temples the figures of Tirthankaras are
nominally different personalities but so alike in presentment that the
laity rarely know them apart. In both styles of art white and jewelled
images are common as well as groups of four sitting figures set back to
back and facing the four quarters[286]: in both we meet with veritable
cities of temples, on the hill tops of Gujarat and in the plain of Pagan
on the banks of the Irawaddy. As some features of Burmese art are
undoubtedly borrowed from India[287], the above characteristics may be
due to imitation of Jain methods. It might be argued that the
architectural style of late Indian Buddhism survives among the Jains but
there is no proof that the multiplication of temples and images was a
feature of this style. But in some points it is clear that the Jains
have followed the artistic conventions of the Buddhists. Thus
Parsvanatha is sheltered by a cobra's hood, like Gotama, and though the
Bo-tree plays no part in the legend of the Tirthankaras, they are
represented as sitting under such trees and a living tree is venerated
at Palitana.

As single edifices illustrating the beauty of Jain art both in grace of
design and patient elaboration of workmanship may be mentioned the
Towers of Fame and Victory at Chitore, and the temples of Mt Abu. Some
differences of style are visible in north and south India. In the former
the essential features are a shrine with a portico attached and
surmounted by a conical tower, the whole placed in a quadrangular court
round which are a series of cells or chapels containing images seated on
thrones. These are the Tirthankaras, almost exactly alike and of white
marble, though some of the later saints are represented as black. The
Svetambaras represent their Tirthankaras as clothed but in the temples
of the Digambaras the images are naked.

In the south are found religious monuments of two kinds known as Bastis
and Bettus. The Bastis consist of pillared vestibules leading to a
shrine over which rises a dome constructed in three or four stages. The
Bettus are not temples in the ordinary sense but courtyards surrounding
gigantic images of a saint named Gommatesvara who is said to have been
the son of the first Tirthankara[288]. The largest of these colossi is
at Sravana Belgola. It is seventy feet in height and carved out of a
mass of granite standing on the top of a hill and represents a sage so
sunk in meditation that anthills and creepers have grown round his feet
without breaking his trance. An inscription states that it was erected
about 983 A.D. by the minister of a king of the Ganga dynasty[289].

But even more remarkable than these gigantic statues are the collections
of temples found on several eminences, such as Girnar and
Satrunjaya[290], mountain masses which rise abruptly to a height of
three or four thousand feet out of level plains. On the summit of
Satrunjaya are innumerable shrines, arranged in marble courts or along
well-paved streets. In each enclosure is a central temple surrounded by
others at the sides, and all are dominated by one which in the
proportions of its spire and courtyard surpasses the rest. Only a few
Yatis are allowed to pass the night in the sacred precincts and it is a
strange experience to enter the gates at dawn and wander through the
interminable succession of white marble courts tenanted only by flocks
of sacred pigeons. On every side sculptured chapels gorgeous in gold and
colour stand silent and open: within are saints sitting grave and
passionless behind the lights that burn on their altars. The multitude
of calm stone faces, the strange silence and emptiness, unaccompanied by
any sign of neglect or decay, the bewildering repetition of shrines and
deities in this aerial castle, suggest nothing built with human purpose
but some petrified spirit world.

Soon after dawn a string of devotees daily ascends the hill. Most are
laymen, but there is a considerable sprinkling of ascetics, especially
nuns. After joining the order both sexes wear yellowish white robes and
carry long sticks. They spend much of their time in visiting holy places
and usually do not stop at one rest house for more than two months. The
worship performed in the temples consists of simple offerings of
flowers, incense and lights made with little ceremony. Pilgrims go their
rounds in small bands and kneeling together before the images sing the
praises of the Jinas.

6

It is remarkable that Jainism is still a living sect, whereas the
Buddhists have disappeared from India. Its strength and persistence are
centred in its power of enlisting the interest of the laity and of
forming them into a corporation. In theory the position of the Jain and
Buddhist layman is the same. Both revere and support a religious order
for which they have not a vocation, and are bound by minor vows less
stringent than those of the monks. But among the Buddhists the members
of the order came to be regarded more and more as the true church[291]
and the laity tended to become (what they actually have become in China
and Japan) pious persons who revere that order as something extraneous
to themselves and very often only as one among several religious
organizations. Hence when in India monasteries decayed or were
destroyed, little active Buddhism was left outside them. But the
wandering ascetics of the Jains never concentrated the strength of the
religion in themselves to the same extent; the severity of their rule
limited their numbers: the laity were wealthy and practically formed a
caste; persecution acted as a tonic. As a result we have a sect
analogous in some ways to the Jews, Parsis, and Quakers[292], among all
of whom we find the same features, namely a wealthy laity, little or no
sacerdotalism and endurance of persecution.

Another question of some interest is how far Jainism should be regarded
as separate from Buddhism. Historically the position seems clear. Both
are offshoots of a movement which was active in India in the sixth
century B.C. in certain districts and especially among the aristocracy.
Of these offshoots--the survivors among many which hardly outlived their
birth--Jainism was a trifle the earlier, but Buddhism was superior and
more satisfying to the intellect and moral sense alike. Out of the
theory and practice of religious life current in their time Gotama
fashioned a beautiful vase, Mahavira a homely but still durable pot. The
resemblances between the two systems are not merely obvious but
fundamental. Both had their origin outside the priestly class and owed
much of their success to the protection of princes. Both preach a road
to salvation open to man's unaided strength and needing neither
sacrifice nor revealed lore. Both are universal, for though Buddhism set
about its world mission with more knowledge and grasp of the task, the
Jain sutras are addressed "to Aryans and non-Aryans" and it is said that
in modern times Mohammedans have been received into the Jain Church.
Neither is theistic. Both believe in some form of reincarnation, in
karma and in the periodical appearance of beings possessed of superhuman
knowledge and called indifferently Jinas or Buddhas. The historian may
therefore be disposed to regard the two religions as not differing much
more than the varieties of Protestant Dissenters to be found in Great
Britain. But the theologian will perceive real differences. One of the
most important doctrines of Buddhism---perhaps in the Buddha's own
esteem the central doctrine--is the non-existence of the soul as a
permanent entity: in Jainism on the contrary not only the human body but
the whole world including inanimate matter is inhabited by individual
souls who can also exist apart from matter in individual blessedness.
The Jain theory of fivefold knowledge is unknown to the Buddhists, as is
their theory of the Skandhas to the Jains. Secondly as to practice
Jainism teaches (with some concessions in modern times) that salvation
is obtainable by self-mortification but this is the method which the
Buddha condemned after prolonged trial. It is clear that in his own
opinion and that of his contemporaries the rule and ideal of life which
he prescribed differed widely from those of the Jains, Ajivikas and
other wandering ascetics.