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JAINS , the most numerous and influential See also:sect of heretics, or nonconformists to the Brahmanical See also:system of See also:Hinduism, in See also:India. They are found in every See also:province of upper Hindustan, in the cities along the See also:Ganges and in See also:Calcutta. But they are more numerous to the See also:west—in Mewar, See also:Gujarat, and in the upper See also:part of the See also:Malabar See also:coast—and are also scattered throughout the whole of the See also:southern See also:peninsula. They are mostly traders, and live in the towns; and the See also:wealth of many of their community gives them a social importance greater than would result from their See also:mere See also:numbers. In the See also:Indian See also:census of 1901 they are returned as being 1,334,140 in number. Their magnificent See also:series of temples and shrines on See also:Mount See also:Abu, one of the seven wonders of India, is perhaps the most striking outward sign of their wealth and importance. The Jains are the last See also:direct representatives on the See also:continent of India of those See also:schools of thought which See also:grew out of the active philosophical See also:speculation and See also:earnest spirit of religious inquiry that prevailed in the valley of the Ganges during the 5th and 6th centuries before the See also:Christian era. For many centuries Jainism was so overshadowed by that stupendous See also:movement, See also:born at the same See also:time and in the same See also:place, which we See also:call See also:Buddhism, that it remained almost unnoticed by the See also:side of its powerful See also:rival. But when Buddhism, whose widely open doors had absorbed the See also:mass of the community, became thereby corrupted from its pristine purity and gradually died away, the smaller school of the Jains, less diametrically opposed to the victorious orthodox creed of the Brahmans, survived, and in some degree took its place. Jainism purports to be the system of belief promulgated by Vaddhamana, better known by his epithet of Maha-vira (the See also:great See also:hero), who was a contemporary of Gotama, the See also:Buddha. But the Jains, like the Buddhists, believe that the same system had previously been proclaimed through countless ages by each one of a See also:succession of earlier teachers. The Jains See also:count twenty-four such prophets, whom they call Jinas, or Tirthankaras, that is, conquerors or leaders of schools of thought. It is from this word Jina that the See also:modern name Jainas, meaning followers of the Jina, or of the Jinas, is derived. This See also:legend of the twenty-four Jinas contains a germ of truth. Maha-vira was not an originator; he merely carried on, with but slight changes, a system which existed before his time, and which probably owes its most distinguishing features to a teacher named Parswa, who ranks in the succession of Jinas as the predecessor of Maha-vira. Parswa is said, in the Jain See also:chronology, to have been born two See also:hundred years before Maha-vira (that is, about 76o B.C.); but the only conclusion that it is safe to draw from this statement is that Parswa was considerably earlier in point of time than Mahavira. Very little reliance can be placed upon the details reported in the Jain books concerning the previous Jinas in the See also:list of the twenty-four Tirthankaras. The curious will find in them many reminiscences of See also:Hindu and Buddhist legend; and the See also:antiquary must See also:notice the distinctive symbols assigned to each, in See also:order to recognize the statues of the different Jinas, otherwise identical, in the different Jain temples.
The Jains are divided into two great parties—the Digambaras, or See also:Sky-clad Ones, and the Svetambaras, or the See also: The Niganthas are referred to in one of See also:Asoka's edicts (Corpus Inscriptionum, See also:Plate xx.). Unfortunately the See also:account of the teachings of Nigantha Nata-putta given in the Buddhist scriptures are, like those of the Buddha's teachings given in the Brahmanical literature, very meagre. Jain Literature.—The Jain scriptures themselves, though based on earlier traditions, are not older in their See also:present form than the 5th century of our era. The most distinctively sacred books are called the See also:forty-five Agamas, consisting of eleven Angas, twelve Upangas, ten Pakinnakas, six Chedas, four See also:Mula-sutras and two other books. Devaddhi Gavin, who occupies among the Jains a position very similar to that occupied among the Buddhists by See also:Buddhaghosa, collected the then existing traditions and teachings of the sect into these forty-five Agamas. Like the Buddhist scriptures, the earlier Jain books are written in a See also:dialect of their own, the so-called Jaina See also:Prakrit; and it was not till between A.D. 1000 and 1too that the Jains adopted See also:Sanskrit as their See also:literary See also:language. Considerable progress has been made in the publication and elucidation of these See also:original authorities. But a great See also:deal remains yet to be done. The See also:oldest books now in the See also:possession of the modern Jains purport to go back, not to the See also:foundation of the existing order in the 6th century B.C., but only to the time of Bhadrabahu, three centuries later. The whole of the still older literature, on which the revision then made was based, the so-called Purees, have been lost. And the existing canonical books, while preserving a great deal that was probably derived trom them, contain much later material. The problem remains to sort out the older from the later, to distinguish between the earlier form of the faith and its subsequent developments, and to collect the numerous data for the See also:general, social, See also:industrial, religious and See also:political See also:history of India. See also:Professor See also:Weber gave a fairly full and carefully-See also:drawn-up See also:analysis of the whole of the more See also:ancient books in the second part of the second See also:volume of his See also:Catalogue of the Sanskrit See also:MSS. at See also:Berlin, published in 1888, and in vols. xvi. and xvii. of his Indische Sludien. An See also:English See also:translation of these last was published first in the Indian Antiquary, and then separately at Bombay, 1893. Professor Bhandarkar gave an account of the contents of many later See also:works in his See also:Report on the See also:Search for Sanskrit MSS., Bombay, 1883. Only a small beginning has been made in editing and translating these works. The best precis of a See also:long See also:book can necessarily only deal with the more important features in it. And in the choice of what should be included the precis-writer will often omit the points some subsequent investigator may most especially want. All the older works ought there-fore to be edited and translated in full and properly indexed. The Jains themselves have now printed in Bombay a See also:complete edition of their sacred books. But the See also:critical value of this edition, and of other See also:editions of See also:separate texts printed elsewhere in India, leaves much to be desired. Professor See also:Jacobi has edited and translated the Kalpa Sutra, containing a See also:life of the founder of the Jain order; but this can scarcely be older than the 5th century of our era. He has also edited and translated the Aydranya See also:Suite of the Svetambara Jains. The See also:text, published by the Pali Text Society, is of 140 pages See also:octavo. The first part of it, about 50 pages, is a very old document on the Jain views as to conduct, and the See also:remainder consists of appendices, added at different times, on the same subject. The older part may go back as See also:early as the 3rd century B.C., and it sets out more especially the Jain See also:doctrine of tapers or self-See also:mortification, in contradistinction to the Buddhist view, which condemned See also:asceticism. The rules of conduct in this book are for members of the order. Dr See also:Rudolf Hoernle edited and translated an ancient See also:work on the rules of conduct for laymen, the Uvasaga Dasao.1 Professor Leumann edited another of the older works, the Aupapatika Sutra, and a See also:fourth, entitled the Dasa-vaikdlika Sutra, both of them published by the See also:German See also:Oriental Society. Professor Jacobi translated two more, the Uttaradhyayana and the Sutra Kritanga.2 Finally Dr See also:Barnett has translated two others in vol. xvii. of the Oriental Translation Fund (new series, See also:London, 1907). Thus about one-fiftieth part of these interesting and valuable old records is now accessible to the See also:European See also:scholar. The sect of the Svetambaras has preserved the oldest literatures. Dr Hoernle has treated of the early history of the sect in the Proceedings of the See also:Asiatic Society of See also:Bengal for 1898. Several scholars—notably Bhagvanlal Indraji, Mr See also:Lewis See also:Rice and Hofrath Buhler 1—have treated of the remarkable archaeological discoveries lately made. These confirm the older records in many details, and show that the Jains, in the centuries before the Christian era, were a wealthy and important See also:body in widely separated parts of India. Jainism.—The most distinguishing outward peculiarity of Maha-vira and of his earliest followers was their practice of going quite naked, whence the See also:term Digambara. Against this See also:custom, Gotama, the Buddha, especially warned his followers; and it is referred to in the well-known See also:Greek phrase, Gymnosophist, used already by Megasthenes, which applies very aptly to the Niganthas. Even the earliest name Nigantha, which means " See also:free from bonds," may not be without allusions to this curious belief in the sanctity of nakedness, though it also alluded to freedom from the bonds of See also:sin and of transmigration. The statues of the Jinas in the Jain temples, some of which are of enormous See also:size, are still always quite naked; but the Jains themselves have abandoned the practice, the Digambaras being sky-clad at See also:meal-time only, and the Svetambaras being always completely clothed. And even among the Digambaras it is only the recluses or Yatis, men devoted to a religious life, who carry out this practice. The Jain laity—the Srdvakas, or disciples—do not adopt it. The Jain views of life were, in the most important and essential respects, the exact See also:reverse of the Buddhist views. The two orders, Buddhist and Jain, were not only, and from the first, See also:independent, but directly opposed the one to the other. In See also:philosophy the Jains are the most thorough-going supporters of the old animistic position. Nearly everything, according to them, has a soul within its outward visible shape—not only men and animals, but also all See also:plants, and even particles of See also:earth, and of See also:water (when it is See also:cold), and See also:fire and See also:wind. The Buddhist theory, as is well known, is put together without the See also:hypothesis of " soul " at all. The word the Jains use for sttil is jiva, which means life; and there is much See also:analogy between many of the expressions they use and the view that the ultimate cells and atoms are all, in a more or less modified sense, alive. They regard See also:good and evil and space as ultimate substances which come into direct contact with the See also:minute souls in everything. And their best-known position in regard to the points most discussed in philosophy is Syad-vdda, the doctrine that you may say " Yes " and at the same time " No " to everything. You can affirm the eternity of the See also:world, for instance, from one point of view, and at the same time deny it from another; or, at different times and in different connexions, you may one See also:day affirm it and another day deny it. This position both leads to vagueness of thought and explains why Jainism has had so little See also:influence over other schools of philosophy in India. On the other See also:hand, the Jains are as determined in their views of asceticism (tapas) as they were compromising in their views of philosophy. Any injury done to the " souls " being one of the worst of iniquities, the good See also: great deal of See also:information on various points in the introductions to the works referred to above. Professor Jacobi, who is the best authority on the history of this sect, thus sums up the distinction between the Maha-vira and the Buddha: " Maha-vira was rather of the See also:ordinary class of religious men in India. He may be allowed a See also:talent for religious matters, but he possessed not the See also:genius which Buddha undoubtedly had. . . . The Buddha's philosophy forms a system based on a few fundamental ideas, whilst that of Maha-vira scarcely forms a system, but is merely a sum of opinions (pannattis) on various subjects, no fundamental ideas being there to uphold the mass of metaphysical See also:matter. Besides this. . .it is the ethical See also:element that gives to the Buddhist writings their superiority over those of the Jains. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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