' In the RiVapraJTii Pari-va has a discussion with i<ing Paesi and converts him, see Actes du VI Coagres International des Orieatalistcs, vol. iii, p. 490 ff.
Xxii GAINA SUTRAS.
the Uttaradhyayana, Lecture XXIII, how the union of the old and the new church was effected, is of much interest in this respect. Kesi and Gautama, the representatives and leaders of the two branches of the 6"aina church, both at the head of their pupils, meet in a park near 5ravasti; 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 Mahavira, ' 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 Mahavira had abandoned. On this assumption we can account for the division of the church in 5vetambaras and Digambaras, about the origin of which both sects have contradictory legends^. There was apparently no sudden rupture; but an original diversity (such as e. g. subsists now between the several Gakk/ias of the ^vetambaras) 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 Niga;///^as before Nataputta; for the Nigaw/Z/as 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 Pi/akas as opponents or converts of Buddha and his disciples; and as it is nowhere said or even merely implied that the Niga«//^as 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 sup- ported by another fact. Makkhali Gosala, a contemporary 1 See my paper on the origin of the 6'vetambara and Digambara sects in the Journal of the German Oriental Society, vol. xxxviii, p. i ff.
INTRODUCTION. XXIII of Buddha and Mahavini, divided mankind into six classes K Of these, according to Buddhaghosa -, the third class con- tains the Niga;////as. Gosala 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 Ma^//ima Nikaya ^^, a disputation between the Buddha and Sa,^^aka, the son of a Niga/7/Z'a, is narrated. Sa/('/^aka is not a Niga;////a himself, as he boasts of having vanquished Nataputta in disputation ^, and, moreover, the tenets he defends are not those of the 6^ainas. Now when a famous controversialist, whose father was a Niga;////a, was a contemporary of the Buddha_, the Niga;////as can scarcely have been a sect founded during Buddha's life.
Let us now confront the records of the 6^ainas about the philosophical doctrines of heretics, which they had to combat, with such as the Buddhists describe. In the Sutrakr/tanga II, T, 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 ad- herents of either philosophy maintain that it is no sin to kill living beings. Similar opinions are^ in the Simauua.- phala Sutta, ascribed to Pura;/a Kassapa and A^ita Kesa- kambali. The former denies that there is such a thing as sin or merit. A^ita Kesakambali holds that nothing real ^ Sama/?/?aphala Sutta, Digha Nikaya II, 20.
^ Siunangala Vilasini, p. 162. Buddhaghosa expressly states that Gosala reckoned the NigawMas lower than his own lay disciples, who form the fourth class. — As Buddhaghosa does not take umbrage at Gosala's reckoning the Bhikkhus still lower, it is clear that he did not identify the Bhikkhus with the Buddhist monks.
^ See p. 250 of the Pali Text Society edition.
Xxiv GAINA stjTRAS.
corresponds to the current transcendental ideas. He more- over maintains: 'Man (puriso) consists of the four ele- ments; 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) ^. 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 Sutrakrztanga, 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".'
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 Atman or soul as a sixth to the five permanent elements. This seems to have been a pri- mitive or a popular form of the philosophy which we now know under the name of Vaij-eshika. To this school of philosophy we must perhaps assign Pakudha KaX'^'ayana of Buddhist record. He maintained " 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 PakudhaKa/^Hyana ^ Aka.i'a; it is not reckoned as a fifth element in the Buddliist account, but it is so in that of the G^ainas, see below, p. 343, and p. 237, verse 15. This is a verbal, rather than a material difference.
^ I put here the original texts side by side so that their likeness may be more obvious: padani pa«/5apenti, kapotakani a.tth\n\ asandipa/z^-ama purisa atthini bhavanti, bhassantashutiyo. gamaw paX'/C-agaZ'/'/^anti.
3 Loc. cit., p. =6.
INTRODUCTION. XXV come under the denomination of Akriyavada; and in this they dififer from the Vaij-eshika proper, which is a Kriyavada system. As these two terms are frequently used both by Buddhists and 6^ainas, it will not be amiss to define them more accurately. Kriyivada is the doctrine which teaches that the soul acts or is affected by acts. Under this head comes Cainism, and of Brahmanical philosophies Vaij"eshika and Nyaya (which, however, are not expressly quoted in the canonical books of either Buddhists or 6^ainas), and appa- rently a great many systems of which the names have not been preserved, but the existence of which is implied in our texts. Akriyavada 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 Vedanta, Saiikhya, and Yoga; and the Buddhists. Of the latter the doctrines of the Kshaz/ikavadins and the vSunya- vadins are alluded to in Sutrakr/tahga I, 14, verses 4 and 7. It may be mentioned here that the Vedantists or their opinions are frequently mentioned in the Siddhanta; in the Sutrakr/tanga the Vedanta 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 pro- fessor of it was among the six heretical teachers (titthiya) of the Buddhists, we may pass them over here ^.
The fourth heresy discussed in the First Lecture of the Second Book of the Sutrakr/taiiga ^ is Fatalism. In the Sama/z/^aphala Sutta this system is expounded by Makkhali Gosala in the following words '-^: ' Great king, there is no cause, nor any previously existing principle productive of the pollution of sentient beings; their defilement is un- caused and unproduced by anything previously existing. There is no cause nor any previously existing principle ^ It is worthy of remark that the Vedantists 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.
XXvi GAINA sfjTRAS.
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 ^, 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 Sutrakr/tahga (1. c), though less wordy, comes to the same; it does not, however, expressly ascribe them to Gosala, the son of Makkhali.
The Cainas enumerate four principal schools of philo- sophy ^: Kriyavada, Akriyavada, A^;/anavada, and Vaina- yikav^da. The views of the A^;7anikas, 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 2, p. 83, is vague and misleading. But from Buddhist writings we may form a pretty correct idea of what Agnos- ticism was like. It is, according to the S^maw^aphala Sutta, the doctrine of Sa/T^aya Bela/Z/ziputta, and is there stated in the following way ^: ' 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 1 In the original: sabbe satta, sabbe pa«a, sabbe bhuta, sabbe ^iva. The same enumeration frequently occurs in Caina Sulras, and has, in my translation, been abbreviated in ' all classes of living beings.' Buddhaghosa's explanation has been thus rendered by Hoemle, Uvasaga Dasao, Appendix II, p. 16: 'In the term all beings (sabbe satta) he comprises camels, oxen, asses, and other animals without exception. The term all sensive beings (sabbe pawa) he uses to denote those with one sense, those with two senses, and so forth. The term all generated beings (sabbe bhuta) he uses with reference to those that are generated or produced from an egg or from the womb. The term all living beings (sabbe ^iva) 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.'
INTRODUCTION. XXVU not my concern. Is it after that fashion? that is not my concern. Is it different from these? that is not my con- cern. 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 Tathagata 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 non- existence 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 6^ainas about the philosophical ideas current at the time of the Buddha and Mahavira, meagre though they be, are of the greatest im- portance to the historian of that epoch. For they show us the ground on which, and the materials with which, a reli- gious reformer had to build his system. The similarity betvi^een some of those ' heretical ' doctrines on the one side, and 6"aina or Buddhist ideas on the other, is very suggestive, and favours the assumption that the Buddha, as well as Mahavira, 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 Sa/^faya^ Mahavira has established the Syadvada. For as the A^/7anavada 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 Syadvada declares that ' you can affirm the existence of a thing from one point of view (syad asti), deny it from another (syad nasti); and affirm both exis- tence and non-existence with reference to it at different times (syad asti nasti). 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 (sydd avaktavya//). Similarly, under certain circumstances, the affirmation of existence is not possible XXviii GAINA SUTRAS.
(syad asti avaktavya//); of non-existence (sy^n nasti avaktavya//); and also of both (syad asti nasti avaktavyaZ;)^.'
This is the famous Saptabhanginaya of the 6^ainas. 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. Con- sequently the Sy^dvada must have appeared to them as a happy way leading out of the maze of the A^wanavada. It was the weapon with which the Agnostics assailed the enemy, turned against themselves. Who knows how many of their followers went over to Mahavira's creed convinced by the truth of the Saptabhanginaya!
We can trace, I imagine, the influence of Agnosticism also in the doctrine of the Buddha about the Nirva;za, as it is stated in Pali 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 Tathagata (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 Nirvana -. It is worthy of note 2 The reticence of Buddha on the nature of the Nirvana 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 cliurch had left unsolved. The tendency to supply the crownint; 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 INTRODUCTION. XXIX that in a dialogue between king Pasenadi and the nun Khema, told in the Sawyutta Nikaya, and translated by Oldenberg, the king puts his questions about the existence or non-existence of the Tathagata after death in the same formulas which Sa%aya is made to use in the passage translated above from the Sama;/;'^aphala Sutta.
In support of my assumption that the Buddha was influenced by contemporary Agnosticism, I may adduce a tradition incorporated in the Mahavagga I, 23 and 24. There we are told that the most distinguished pair of his disciples, Sariputta and Moggalana, had, previously to their conversion, been adherents of Saw^'-aya, 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 Mahavira's doctrines must, I believe, be ascribed to Gosala, the son of Makkhali. A history of his life, contained in the Bhaga- vati XV, I, has been briefly translated by Hoernle in the Appendix to his translation of the Uvasaga Dasao. It is there recorded that Gosala lived six years together with Mahaviraas his disciple, practising asceticism, but afterwards separated from him, started a Law of his own, and set up as a Gina., the leader of the A^ivikas. The Buddhist records, however, speak of him as the successor of Nanda Va.kk/ia. and Kisa SawkiH^a, and of his sect, the a/^elaka paribba- ^akas, as a long-established order of monks. We have no reason to doubt the statement of the G^ainas, that Mahavira and Gosala 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 Mahavira and Gosala assosects soon after the Nirvana 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 Nirvawa in its orisrinal form.
XXX GAINA SUTRAS.
dated 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 ex- pression sabbe satta sabbe pa«a sabbe bhuta sabbe ^iva is common to both Gosala and the 6'ainas, and from the commentary we learn that the division of animals into eke n d ri y as, dvindriyas.&c. which is so common in Caina texts, was also used by Gosala. The curious and almost para- doxical Caina doctrine of the six Lej-yas closely resembles, as Professor Leumann was the first to perceive, Gosala's division of mankind into six classes; but in this particular I am inclined to believe that the G'ainas borrowed the idea A A from the A^ivikas 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 Mahavira borrowed the more rigid rules from Gosala. For as stated in the Uttaradhyayana XXIII, 13, p. isi^ the Law of Parj-va allowed monks to wear an under and upper garment, but the Law of Vardhamana forbade clothes. A term ^ for naked friar, frequently met with in the (7aina Sutras, is a/relaka, literally 'unclothed.' Now the Buddhists dis- tinguish between A/C'elakas and Niga7///^as; e. g. in Buddha- ghosa's commentary on the Dhammapadam^ it is said of some Bhikkhus that they gave the preference to the Niga;2///as before the Akelakas, because the latter are stark naked (sabbaso apa^'i/^y^/zanna), while the Niga;////as use some sort of cover ^ ' for the sake of decency,' as was wrongly assumed by those Bhikkhus. The Buddhists de- * Another term is Ginakalpika, which may be rendered: adopting the standard of the ■ Cinas. The.Svetambaras say that the C^inakalpa was early replaced by the Sthavirakalpa, which allows the use of clothes.
^ The words sesakam purimasamappita va pa/i/i'/^/^adenti are not quite clear, but the contrast leaves no doubt about what is meant. Sesaka is, I believe, the Pali for jij-naka. If this is right, the above words may be translated: * they cover the pudenda wearing (a cloth) about the forepart (of their body).'
INTRODUCTION. XXXI note by A/x'laka the followers of Makkhali Gosala and his two predecessors Kisa Sz^nkU^ka. and Nanda VakMa., and have preserved an account of their religious practices in the Ma^';^//ima Nikaya;^6. There Sa/'Z'aka, the son of a Niga;////a, whom we are already acquainted with, explains the meaning of kayabhavana, bodily purity, by referring to the conduct of the A/['elakas. Some details of Sa/'/^aka's account are unintelligible in the absence of a commentary, but many are quite clear, and bear a close resemblance to well-known Caina usages. Thus the A/^elakas, like the 6^aina monks, may not accept an invitation for dinner; they are forbidden food that is abhiha/a or uddissaka^a, which terms are, in all likelihood, identical with adhya- hrz'ta and auddej'ika of the 6^ainas (see p. 133, 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 Caina monks described in the Kalpa Sutra, ' Rules for Yatis,' § 36, part i, p, 300, and below, p. 176 f., verses 15 and 19. The following practice of the AkelaksLS is identically the same as that observed by the Cainas: 'some eat but one meal every day, or every second day\ &c., up to every half month.' All the rules of the A/^elakas are either identical with those of the 6"ainas or extremely like them, and dictated, so to say, by the same spirit. And still Sa.kkaka. does not quote the Niga/z/Z/as as a standard of ' bodily purity,' though he was the son of a Niga7///^a, and therefore must have known their religious practices. This curious fact may most easily be accounted for by our assuming that the original Niga;////as, of whom the Buddhist records usually speak, were not the section of the church, which submitted to the more rigid rules of Mahavira, but those followers of Parj-va, who.
' These fasts are called by the (7ainas /'autthabhatta, k/iail/iahhatia, &c. (see e. g. Aupapatika Sutra, ed. Leumann, § 30I A); and monks observing them, Z-autthabhattiya, ^Aaif//;abhattiya, &c. (see e.g. Kalpa Sulra, ' Rules for Yatis,' § 21 ff.)
XXxIi GAINA stjTRAS.
without forming a hostile party, yet continued, I imagine, to retain witliin the united church some particular usages of the old one ^. As those rigid rules formed no part of the ancient creed, and Mahavira, therefore, must have intro- duced them, it is probable that he borrowed them from the A/^elakas or A^ivikas, the followers of Gosala, with whom he is said to have lived in close companionship for six years practising austerities. We may regard Mahavira's adoption of some religious ideas and practices of the A^ivikas as concessions made to them in order to win over Gosala 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. Mahavira's position apparently was strength- ened by his temporary association with Gosala, but the latter seems to have lost by it, if we are to believe the account of the G^ainas, and his tragic end must have been a severe blow to the prospects of his sect.