The Religions of India Part 31

The First vow: I renounce all killing of living beings, whether subtile or gross, whether movable or immovable. Nor shall I myself kill living beings nor cause others to do it, nor consent to it. As long as I live I confess and blame, repent and exempt myself of these sins in the thrice threefold way,[29] in mind, speech, and body.

The five 'clauses' that explain this vow are: (1) the n.i.g.g.antha (Jain) is careful in walking; (2) he does not allow his mind to act in a way to suggest injury of living beings; (3) he does not allow his speech to incite to injury; (4) he is careful in laying down his utensils; (5) he inspects his food and drink lest he hurt living beings.

The Second Vow: I renounce all vices of lying speech arising from anger, or greed, or fear, or mirth. I confess (etc, as in the first vow).

The five clauses here explain that the n.i.g.g.antha speaks only after deliberation; does not get angry; renounces greed; renounces fear; renounces mirth--lest through any of these he be moved to lie.

The Third Vow: I renounce all taking of anything not given, either in a village, or a town, or a wood, either of little or much, or small or great, of living or lifeless things. I shall neither take myself what is not given nor cause others to take it, nor consent to their taking it. As long as I live I confess (etc., as in the first vow).

The clauses here explain that the n.i.g.g.antha must avoid different possibilities of stealing, such as taking food without permission of his superior. One clause states that he may take only a limited ground for a limited time, _i.e_., he may not settle down indefinitely on a wide area, for he may not hold land absolutely. Another clause insists on his having his grant to the land renewed frequently.

The Fourth Vow: I renounce all s.e.xual pleasures, either with G.o.ds, or men, or animals. I shall not give way to sensuality (etc).

The clauses here forbid the n.i.g.g.antha to discuss topics relating to women, to contemplate the forms of women, to recall the pleasures and amus.e.m.e.nts he used to have with women, to eat and drink too highly seasoned viands, to lie near women.

The Fifth Vow: I renounce all attachments, whether little or much, small or great, living or lifeless; neither shall I myself form such attachments, nor cause others to do so, nor consent to their doing so (etc.).

The five clauses particularize the dangerous attachments formed by ears, eyes, smell, taste, touch.

It has been shown above (following Jacobi's telling comparison of the heretical vows with those of the early Brahman ascetic) that these vows are taken not from Buddhism but from Brahmanism. Jacobi opines that the Jains took the four first and that the reformer Mah[=a]v[=i]ra added the fifth as an offset to the Brahmanical vow of liberality.[30] The same writer shows that certain minor rules of the Jain sect are derived from the same Brahmanical source.

The main differences between the two Jain sects have been catalogued in an interesting sketch by Williams,[31] who mentions as the chief Jain stations of the north Delhi (where there is an annual gathering), Jeypur, and [=A]jm[=i]r. To these Mathur[=a] on the Jumna should be added.[32] The cvet[=a]mbaras had forty-five or forty-six [=A]gamas, eleven or twelve Angas, twelve Up[=a]ngas, and other scriptures of the third or fourth century B.C., as they claim. They do not go naked (even their idols are clothed), and they admit women into the order.

The Digambaras do not admit women, go naked, and have for sacred texts later works of the fifth century A.D. The latter of course a.s.sert that the scriptures of the former sect are spurious.[33]

In distinction from the Buddhists the Jains of to-day keep up caste.

Some of them are Brahmans. They have, of course, a different prayer-formula, and have no St[=u]pas or D[=a]gobas (to hold relics); and, besides the metaphysical difference spoken of above, they differ from the Buddhists in a.s.suming that metempsychosis does not stop at animal existence, but includes inanimate things (as these are regarded by others). According to one of their own sect of to-day, _ahi[.m]s[=a] paramo dharmas_, 'the highest law of duty is not to hurt a living creature.'[34]

The most striking absurdity of the Jain reverence for life has frequently been commented upon. Almost every city of western India, where they are found, has its beast-hospital, where animals are kept and fed. An amusing account of such an hospital, called Pi[=n]jra Pol, at Saurar[=a]shtra, Surat, is given in the first number of the _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_.[35] Five thousand rats were supported in such a temple-hospital in Kutch.[36]

Of all the great religious sects of India that of N[=a]taputta is perhaps the least interesting, and has apparently the least excuse for being.[37] The Jains offered to the world but one great moral truth, withal a negative truth, 'not to harm,' nor was this verity invented by them. Indeed, what to the Jain is the great truth is only a grotesque exaggeration of what other sects recognized in a reasonable form. Of all the sects the Jains are the most colorless, the most insipid. They have no literature worthy of the name. They were not original enough to give up many orthodox features, so that they seem like a weakened rill of Brahmanism, cut off from the source, yet devoid of all independent character. A religion in which the chief points insisted upon are that one should deny G.o.d, worship man, and nourish vermin, has indeed no right to exist; nor has it had as a system much influence on the history of thought. As in the case of Buddhism, the refined Jain metaphysics are probably a late growth.

Historically these sectaries served a purpose as early protestants against ritualistic and polytheistic Brahmanism; but their real affinity with the latter faith is so great that at heart they soon became Brahmanic again. Their position geographically would make it seem probable that they, and not the Buddhists, had a hand in the making of the ethics of the later epic.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: We retain here and in Buddhism the usual terminology. Strictly speaking, Jainism is to Jina (the reformer's t.i.tle) as is Bauddhism to Buddha, so that one should say Jinism, Buddhism, or Jainism, Bauddhism. Both t.i.tles, Jina and Buddha ('victor' and 'awakened'), were given to each leader; as in general many other mutual t.i.tles of honor were applied by each sect to its own head, Jina, Arhat ('venerable'), Mah[=a]v[=i]ra ('great hero'), Buddha, etc. One of these t.i.tles was used, however, as a t.i.tle of honor by the Jains, but to designate heretics by the Buddhists, viz., T[=i]rthankara (T[=i]rthakara in the original), 'prophet'

(see Jacobi, SBE. xxii. Introd. p. xx).]

[Footnote 2: It is possible, however, on the other hand, that both Vishnuite and civaite sects (or, less anglicized, Vaishnavas, caivas, if one will also say Vaidic for Vedic), were formed before the end of the sixth century B.C. Not long after this the divinities civa and Vishnu receive especial honor.]

[Footnote 3: The Beggar (cramana, Bhikshu), the Renunciator (Sanny[=a]s[=i]n), the Ascetic (Yati), are Brahmanic terms as well as sectarian.]

[Footnote 4: The three great reformers of this period are Mah[=a]v[=i]ra, Buddha, and Gos[=a]la. The last was first a pupil and then a rival of Mah[=a]v[=i]ra. The latter's nephew, Jam[=a]li, also founded a distinct sect and became his uncle's opponent, the speculative sectarian tendency being as p.r.o.nounced as it was about the same time in h.e.l.las.

Gos[=a]la appears to have had quite a following, and his sect existed for a long time, but now it is utterly perished. An account of this reformer and of Jam[=a]li will be found in Leumann's essay, _Indische Studien_, xvii. p. 98 ff. and in the appendix to Rockhill's _Life of Buddha_.]

[Footnote 5: The Nirgranthas (Jains) are never referred to by the Buddhists as being a new sect, nor is their reputed founder, N[=a]taputta, spoken of as their founder; whence Jacobi plausibly argues that their real founder was older than Mah[=a]v[=i]ra, and that the sect preceded that of Buddha. La.s.sen and Weber have claimed, on the contrary, that Jainism is a revolt against Buddhism. The identification of N[=a]taputta (Jn[=a]triputra) with Mah[=a]v[=i]ra is due to Buhler and Jacobi (Kalpas[=u]tra, Introd. p.6).]

[Footnote 6: According to Jacobi, ZDMG. x.x.xviii. 17, the split in the party arose in this way. About 350 B.C. some Jain monks under the leadership of Bhadrab[=a]hu went south, and they followed stricter rules of asceticism than did their fellows in the north. Both sects are modifications of the original type, and their differences did not result in sectarian separation till about the time of our era, at which epoch arose the differentiating t.i.tles of sects that had not previously separated into formal divisions, but had drifted apart geographically.]

[Footnote 7: Compare Jacobi, _loc. cit_. and Leumann's account of the seven sects of the cvet[=a]mbaras in the essay in the _Indische Studien_ referred to above. At the present day the Jains are found to the number of about a million in the northwest (cvet[=a]mbaras), and south (Digambaras) of India. The original seat of the whole body in its first form was, as we have said, near Benares, where also arose and flourished Buddhism.]

[Footnote 8: Hemacandra's Yogac[=a]stra, edited by Windisch, ZDMG. xxviii. 185 ff. (iii. 133). The Jain's hate of women did not prevent his worshipping G.o.ddesses as the female energy like the later Hindu sects. The Jains are divided in regard to the possibility of woman's salvation. The Yogac[=a]stra alludes to women as 'the lamps that burn on the road that leads to the gate of h.e.l.l,' ii. 87. The Digambaras do not admit women into the order, as do the cvet[=a]mbaras.]

[Footnote 9: _Die Bharata-sage_, Leumann, ZDMG. xlviii.

p.65. See also above in the S[=u]tras. With the Jains there is less of the monastic side of religion than with the Buddhists.]

[Footnote 10: Jains are sometimes called Arhats on account of their veneration for the Arhat or chief Jina (whence Jain). Their only real G.o.ds are their chiefs or Teachers, whose idols are worshipped in the temples. Thus, like the Buddhist and some Hindu sects of modern times, they have given up G.o.d to worship man. Rather have they adopted an idolatry of man and worship of womanhood, for they also revere the female energy. Positivism has ancient models!]

[Footnote 11: The Jain sub-sects did not differ much among themselves in philosophical speculation. Their differences were rather of a practical sort.]

[Footnote 12: See the list of the Bertin MSS.; Weber, _Berlin MSS_. vol. ii. 1892; and the thirty-third volume of the German Oriental Journal, pp. 178, 693. For an account of the literature see also Jacobi's introduction to the SBE.

vol. xxii; and Weber, _Ueber die heiligen Schriften der Jaina_ in vols. xvi, xvii of the _Indische Studien_ (translated by Smyth in the Indian Antiquary); and the Bibliography (below).]

[Footnote 13: A case of connection in legends between Buddhist and Jain is mentioned below. Another is the history of king Paesi, elaborated in Buddhistic literature (Tripitaka) and in the second Jain Up[=a]nga alike, as has been shown by Leumann.]

[Footnote 14: The Jain's spirit, however, is not a world-spirit. He does not believe in an All-Spirit, but in a plurality of eternal spirits, fire-spirits, wind-spirits, plant-spirits, etc.]

[Footnote 15: Compare Colebrooke's _Essays_, vol. II. pp.

404, 444, and the Yogac[=a]stra cited above.]

[Footnote 16: This is not in the earlier form of the vow (see below).]

[Footnote 17: II. 37 and 41. Although the Brahman ascetic took the vow not to kill, yet is he permitted to do so for sacrifice, and he may eat flesh of animals killed by other animals (Gautama, 3. 31).]

[Footnote 18: _Loc. cit_. III. 37-38. The evening and night are not times to eat, and for the same reason "The G.o.ds eat in the morning, the Seers at noon, the Fathers in the afternoon, the devils at twilight and night" (_ib_. 58). For at night one might eat a a living thing by mistake.]

[Footnote 19: _Loc. cit_. II. 27.]

[Footnote 20: The pun _m[=a][.m]sa, "Me eat_ will be hereafter whose _meat_ I eat in this life" (Lanman), shows that Jain and Brahman believed in a h.e.l.l where the injured avenged themselves (Manu, V. 55; HYc. III. 26), just as is related in the Bhrigu story (above).]

[Footnote 21: By intuition or instruction.]

[Footnote 22: _Loc. cit_. I. 15 ff.]

[Footnote 23: _Loc. cit_. 121 ff. Wilson, _Essays_, I. 319, gives a description of the simple Jain ritual.]

[Footnote 24: Who says "may be."]

[Footnote 25: Mukunda.]

[Footnote 26: This 'keeping _va.s.so_' is also a Brahmanic custom, as Buhler has pointed out. But it is said somewhere that at that season the roads are impossible, so that there is not so much a conscious copying as a physical necessity in keeping _va.s.so_; perhaps also a moral touch, owing to the increase of life and danger of killing.]

[Footnote 27: In the lives of the Jinas it is said that Jn[=a]triputra's (N[=a]taputta's) parents worshipped the 'people's favorite,' P[=a]rcva, and were followers of the cramanas (ascetics). In the same work (which contains nothing further for our purpose) it is said that Arhats, Cakravarts, Baladevas, and Vasudevas, present, past, and future, are aristocrats, born in n.o.ble families. The heresies and sectaries certainly claim as much.]

[Footnote 28: [=A]c[=a]r[=a]nga S. ii. 15. We give Jacobi's translation, as in the verses already cited from this work.]

[Footnote 29: Acting, commanding, consenting, past, present, or future (Jacobi).]