Jaina Sutras
Part II
The Uttaradhyayana Sutra
The Sutrakritanga Sutra
Translated from Prakrit by Hermann Jacobi
Introduction
TEN years have elapsed since the first part of my translation of Gaina Sutras appeared. During that decennium many and very important additions to our knowledge of Gainism 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 Guzerati, 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 and Hoernle ; and the latter scholar has added a careful translation and ample illustrations to his edition of the text. A general survey of the whole Gaina literature has been given by Professor Weber in his catalogue of the Berlin Manuscripts and in his learned treatise on the sacred literature of the Gainas. The development of Gaina learning and science has been studied by Professor Leumann, and some Gaina legends and their relations to those of the Brahmans and Buddhists have been investigated by the same scholar . An important document for our knowledge of the old history of the Svetambara sect has been edited by myself , and the history of some of their Gakkhas 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 Gaina writers and historical persons, and he has issued specimens of this great Onomasticon, while Hofrat Buhler has written a detailed biography of the famous encyclopaedist Hemakandra . The same scholar has deciphered the ancient inscriptions, and discussed the sculptures excavated by Dr. Fuhrer at Mathura , and the important inscriptions at Sravana Belgola have been edited by Mr. Lewis Rice ; M. A. Barth has reviewed our knowledge of Gainism , and likewise Buhler in a short paper . Lastly Bhandarkar has given a most valuable sketch of the whole of Gainism . All these additions to our knowledge of Gainism (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 Nataputta (Gnatriputra), who is commonly called Mahavira or Vardhamana, was a contemporary of Buddha; and that the Niganthas (Nirgranthas), now better known under the name of Gainas or Arhatas, 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 Gainas, or underwent a great change up to the time of the composition of the Siddhanta. 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 Niganthas, their doctrines and religious practices.
In the Anguttara Nikaya, III, 74, a learned prince of the Likkhavis of Vaisali, Abhaya , gives the following account of some Nigantha doctrines: ‘The Nigantha Nataputta, 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 (niggara) which is really effective.’
The Gaina counterpart to these tenets can be collected from the Uttaradhyayana XXIX. By austerities he cuts off Karman,’ section 27. ‘By renouncing activity he obtains inactivity; by ceasing to act he acquires no new Karman, and destroys the Karman he had acquired before,’ section 37. The last stages in this process are fully described in sections 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 vedana, perception], is free from sorrows; though still in the Samsara, 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 Nataputta claimed the possession of perfect knowledge and faith, requires no further proof; for it is one of the fundamental dogmas of the Gainas.
Another piece of information about Nigantha doctrines may be gathered from the Mahavagga VI, 31 (S. B. E., vol. xvii, p. 108 ff.) There a story is told of Siha , the general of the Likkhavis, who was a lay disciple of Nataputta. He wanted to pay the Buddha a visit, but Nataputta tried to dissuade him from it, because the Niganthas held the Kriyavada, while the Buddha taught the Akriyavada. Siha, 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 Niganthas embraced the Kriyavada is borne out by our texts; for in the Sutrakritanga I, 12, 21, below, p. 319, it is said that a perfect ascetic ‘is entitled to expound the Kriyavada;’ and this doctrine is thus expressed in the Akaranga Sutra 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 Mahavira, converted by the Buddha, was Upali. As narrated in the Magghima Nikaya 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 Nigantha Nataputta contends. In the beginning of the discourse Upali states that his master uses the term danda, 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 Gaina Sutras in that sense. The term danda, however, is at least as frequently used. Thus, in the Sutrakritanga 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 dandasamadane, and in the remaining cases kiriyathane, i.e. kriyasthana.
The Nigantha Upali goes on to explain that there are three dandas, the danda of body, that of speech, and that of mind. This agrees with the Gaina doctrine expressed in nearly the same words in the Sthananga Sutra, 3rd uddesaka (see Indian Antiquary, IX, p. 159).
The second statement of Upali, that the Niganthas consider sins of the body more important than sins of the mind, is in perfect harmony with Gaina views. For in the Sutrakritanga 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 Anguttara Nikaya III, 70, 3, some practices of Nigantha laymen are discussed. I translate the passage thus: ‘O Visakha, there is a class of Samanas who are called Niganthas. They exhort a Savaka thus: “Well, sir, you must desist from doing injury to beings in the East beyond a yogana from here, or to those in the West, North, South, always beyond a yogana 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 Gainas, 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 Gainas 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, page 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 Anguttara Nikaya, which we have just discussed, goes on as follows: ‘On the Uposatha day they exhort a Savaka 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 Niganthas) 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 Nigantha 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 Gainas. Bhandarkar gives the following definition of Posaha according to the Tattvarthasaradipika, 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 Gainas are apparently more severe than those of the Buddhists, still they fall short of the above description of the Nigantha rules; for a Gaina 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 Gainas have abated somewhat in their rigidity with regard to the duties of laymen.
Buddhaghosa, in his commentary on the Brahmagala Sutta, Digha Nikaya I, 2, 38 , mentions the Niganthas as holding the opinion, discussed in the text, that the soul has no colour, in contradistinction to the Agivikas, who divide mankind into six classes according to the colour of the Atman; both Niganthas and Agivikas, 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 Gainas about the nature of the soul, as described below, page 172 f.
In another passage (l.c. p. 168) Buddhaghosa says that Nigantha Nataputta considers cold water to be possessed of life (so kira sitodake sattasanni hoti), for which reason he does not use it. This doctrine of the Gainas is so generally known that I need not bring forward any quotation from the Sutras in support of its genuineness.
This is nearly all the information on the doctrines of the ancient Niganthas which I have been able to gather from the Pali 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 Niganthas mentioned agree with those of the present Gainas, and they comprise some of the fundamental ideas of Gainism. It is therefore not probable that the doctrines of the Gainas have undergone a great change in the interval between the quoted Buddhist records and the composition of the Gaina canon.
I have purposely deferred the discussion of the classical passage on the doctrines of Nigantha Nataputta, because it leads us to a new line of inquiry. The passage in question occurs in the Samannaphala Sutta of the Digha Nikaya . I translate it in accordance with Buddhaghosa’s comment in the Sumangala Vilasini. ‘Here, great king, a Nigantha is protected by restraint in four directions (katuyamasamvarasamvuto). How, great king, is a Nigantha protected by restraint in four directions? Here, great king, a Nigantha 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 Nigantha is protected by restraint in four directions. And, great king, because he is thus protected, the Nigantha Nataputta’s soul is exalted, is restrained, is well settled .’ — This is, certainly, not an accurate nor an exhaustive description of the Gaina creed, though it contains nothing alien from it, and successfully imitates the language of the Gaina Sutras. As I have already explained elsewhere , I think the term katuyamasamvarasamvuto has been misunderstood not only by the commentator, but also by the author of the text. For the Pali katuyama is equivalent to the Prakrit katuggama, a well-known Gaina term which denotes the four vows of Parsva in contradistinction to the five vows (panka mahavvaya) of Mahavira. Here, then, the Buddhists, I suppose, have made a mistake in ascribing to Nataputta Mahavira a doctrine which properly belonged to his predecessor Parsva. This is a significant mistake; for the Buddhists could not have used the above term as descriptive of the Nigantha creed unless they had heard it from followers of Parsva, and they would not have used it if the reforms of Mahavira had already been generally adopted by the Niganthas at the time of the Buddha. I, therefore, look on this blunder of the Buddhists as a proof for the correctness of the Gaina tradition, that followers of Parsva actually existed at the time of Mahavira.
Before following up this line of inquiry, I have to call attention to another significant blunder of the Buddhists: they call Nataputta an Aggivesana, i.e. Agnivaisyayana; according to the Gainas, however, he was a Kasyapa, and we may credit them in such particulars about their own Tirthakara. But Sudharman, his chief disciple, who in the Sutras is made the expounder of his creed, was an Agnivaisyayana, and as he played a prominent part in the propagation of the Gaina 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 Mahavira’s predecessor Parsva and of his chief disciple Sudharman.
That Parsva was a historical person, is now admitted by all as very probable; indeed, his followers, especially Kesi , who seems to have been the leader of the sect at the time of Mahavira, are frequently mentioned in Gaina Sutras in such a matter-of-fact way, as to give us no reason for doubting the authenticity of those records. The legend in 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 Gaina church, both at the head of their pupils, meet in a park near Sravasti; 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 Svetambaras 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 Gakkhas of the Svetambaras) 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 Niganthas before Nataputta; for the Niganthas 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 Pitakas as opponents or converts of Buddha and his disciples; and as it is nowhere said or even merely implied that the Niganthas 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 Gosala, a contemporary of Buddha and Mahavira, divided mankind into six classes . Of these, according to Buddhaghosa , the third class contains the Niganthas. 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 Magghima Nikaya 35, a disputation between the Buddha and Sakkaka, the son of a Nigantha, is narrated. Sakkaka is not a Nigantha himself, as he boasts of having vanquished Nataputta in disputation , and, moreover, the tenets he defends are not those of the Gainas. Now when a famous controversialist, whose father was a Nigantha, was a contemporary of the Buddha, the Niganthas can scarcely have been a sect founded during Buddha’s life.
Let us now confront the records of the Gainas about the philosophical doctrines of heretics, which they had to combat, with such as the Buddhists describe. In the Sutrakritanga II, I, 15 (page 339 f.) and 21 f. (page 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 Samannaphala Sutta, ascribed to Purana Kassapa and Agita Kesakambali. The former denies that there is such a thing as sin or merit. Agita Kesakambali 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) . 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 Sutrakritanga, page 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 (page 343, section 22, and page 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 primitive or a popular form of the philosophy which we now know under the name of Vaiseshika. To this school of philosophy we must perhaps assign Pakudha Kakkayana 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 Pakudha Kakkayana come under the denomination of Akriyavada; and in this they differ from the Vaiseshika proper, which is a Kriyavada system. As these two terms are frequently used both by Buddhists and Gainas, it will not be amiss to define them more accurately. Kriyavada is the doctrine which teaches that the soul acts or is affected by acts. Under this head comes Gainism, and of Brahmanical philosophies Vaiseshika and Nyaya (which, however, are not expressly quoted in the canonical books of either Buddhists or Gainas), and apparently 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, Sankhya, and Yoga; and the Buddhists. Of the latter the doctrines of the Kshanikavadins and the Sunyavadins are alluded to in Sutrakritanga 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 Sutrakritanga the Vedanta is the third heresy described in the First Lecture of the Second Book, page 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 .
The fourth heresy discussed in the First Lecture of the Second Book of the Sutrakritanga is Fatalism. In the Samannaphala 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 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 , 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 Sutrakritanga (l.c.), though less wordy, comes to the same; it does not, however, expressly ascribe them to Gosala, the son of Makkhali.
The Gainas enumerate four principal schools of philosophy: Kriyavada, Akriyavada, Agnanavada, and Vainayikavada. The views of the Agnanikas, 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 , page 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 Samannaphala Sutta, the doctrine of Sangaya Belatthiputta, 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 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 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 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 Gainas about the philosophical ideas current at the time of the Buddha and Mahavira, 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 Gaina 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 Sangaya, Mahavira has established the Syadvada. For as the Agnanavada 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 existence 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 (syad avaktavyah). Similarly, under certain circumstances, the affirmation of existence is not possible (syad asti avaktavyah); of non-existence (syan nasti avaktavyah); and also of both (syad asti nasti avaktavyah) .’
This is the famous Saptabhanginaya of the Gainas. 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 Syadvada must have appeared to them as a happy way leading out of the maze of the Agnanavada. 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 Nirvana, 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 that in a dialogue between king Pasenadi and the nun Khema, told in the Samyutta 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 Sangaya is made to use in the passage translated above from the Samannaphala 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 Sangaya, 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 Bhagavati 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 Mahavira as 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 Agivikas. The Buddhist records, however, speak of him as the successor of Nanda Vakkha and Kisa Samkikka, and of his sect, the akelaka paribbagakas, as a long-established order of monks. We have no reason to doubt the statement of the Gainas, that Mahavira and Gosala for some time practised austerities together; but the relation between them probably was different from what the Gainas would have us believe. I suppose, and shall now bring forward some arguments in favour of my opinion, that Mahavira and Gosala 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 page xxvi, that the expression sabbe satta sabbe pana sabbe bhuta sabbe giva is common to both Gosala and the Gainas, and from the commentary we learn that the division of animals into ekendriyas, dvindriyas, &c., which is so common in Gaina texts, was also used by Gosala. The curious and almost paradoxical Gaina doctrine of the six Lesyas 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 Gainas borrowed the idea from the Agivikas 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, page 121, the Law of Parsva 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 Gaina Sutras, is akelaka, literally ‘unclothed.’ Now the Buddhists distinguish between Akelakas and Niganthas; e.g. in Buddhaghosa’s commentary on the Dhammapadam it is said of some Bhikkhus that they gave the preference to the Niganthas before the Akelakas, because the latter are stark naked (sabbaso apatikkhanna), while the Niganthas use some sort of cover ‘for the sake of decency,’ as was wrongly assumed by those Bhikkhus. The Buddhists denote by Akelaka the followers of Makkhali Gosala and his two predecessors Kisa Samkikka and Nanda Vakkha, and have preserved an account of their religious practices in the Magghima Nikaya 36. There Sakkaka, the son of a Nigantha, whom we are already acquainted with, explains the meaning of kayabhavana, bodily purity, by referring to the conduct of the Akelakas. Some details of Sakkaka’s account are unintelligible in the absence of a commentary, but many are quite clear, and bear a close resemblance to well-known Gaina usages. Thus the Akelakas, like the Gaina monks, may not accept an invitation for dinner; they are forbidden food that is abhihata or uddissakata, which terms are, in all likelihood, identical with adhyahrita and auddesika of the Gainas (see page 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 Gaina monks described in the Kalpa Sutra, ‘Rules for Yatis,’ 26, part i, p. 300, and below, p. 176 f., verses 15 and 19. The following practice of the Akelakas is identically the same as that observed by the Gainas: ‘some eat but one meal every day, or every second day , &c., up to every half month.’ All the rules of the Akelakas are either identical with those of the Gainas or extremely like them, and dictated, so to say, by the same spirit. And still Sakkaka does not quote the Niganthas as a standard of ‘bodily purity,’ though he was the son of a Nigantha, and therefore must have known their religious practices. This curious fact may most easily be accounted for by our assuming that the original Niganthas, 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 Parsva, who, without forming a hostile party, yet continued, I imagine, to retain within 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 introduced them, it is probable that he borrowed them from the Akelakas or Agivikas, 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 Agivikas 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 strengthened by his temporary association with Gosala, but the latter seems to have lost by it, if we are to believe the account of the Gainas, and his tragic end must have been a severe blow to the prospects of his sect.
Mahavira 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 Gaina 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 Gaina church by the successful policy of Mahavira , may have brought with it some of its favourite speculations, and most probably its favourite saints too, who were recognised as Kakravartins or Tirthakaras. This is, of course, a mere conjecture of mine; but it would account for the strange hagiology of the Gainas, 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 Gainas, 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 Gaina church consists in my turning to account the alleged existence of followers of Parsva in the time of Mahavira, a tradition which seems to be almost unanimously accepted by modern scholars.
If Gainism dates from an early period, and is older than Buddha and Mahavira, we may expect to find marks of its antiquity in the character of Gaina 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, Gaina ethics are for their greater part based on primitive animism, it must have extensively existed in large classes of Indian society when Gainism 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 Gainism has in common with the oldest Brahmanical philosophies, Vedanta and Sankhya. 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 Vedanta 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 Sankhya the nature of purusha or soul is similarly defined as being intelligence or light; and the three gunas are described as goodness, energy, and delusion, or light, colour, and darkness; yet these gunas 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 Gaina texts usually speak only of substances, dravyas, and their development or modifications, paryayas; and when they mention gunas, qualities, besides, which however is done but rarely in the Sutras and regularly in comparatively modern books only, this seems to be a later innovation due to the influence which the philosophy and terminology of Nyaya-Vaiseshika gradually gained over the scientific thoughts of the Hindus. For at the side of paryaya, development or modification, there seems to be no room for an independent category ‘quality,’ since paryaya 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 Gainas 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 ; for they are regarded as coextensive with the world, not unlike space, which even the Vaiseshikas 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 Vaiseshika philosophy (which defines substance as the substratum of qualities, and quality as that which is inherent in substance), Gainism 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 , who claims a late origin for Gainism, because, on some points, it entertains the same views as the Vaiseshika. The Vaiseshika 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 Kanada, 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 Gainas may be accused. I must, however, remark that Bhandarkar believes the Gainas to hold, on the points presently to be discussed, a view ‘which is of the nature of a compromise between the Sankhyas and the Vedantins on the one hand and the Vaiseshika 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 Gainism and Vaiseshika embrace the Kriyavada, i.e. they maintain that the soul is directly affected by actions, passions, &c.; (2) both advocate the doctrine of asatkarya, i.e. that the product is different from its material cause, while the Vedanta and Sankhya hold that they are the same (satkarya); (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 prima 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 Vaiseshika, as are the result of a peculiar train of reasoning, e.g. that space (dis) and air (akasa) are two separate substances, do not recur in Gainism. For in it, as well as in the older Brahmanical systems, Vedanta and Sankhya, space and air are not yet distinguished from one another, but akasa is made to serve for both.
Some other instances of difference in fundamental doctrines between Vaiseshikas and Gainas 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 Vaiseshikas make dharma and adharma qualities of the soul, while, as has been said above, the Gainas look on them as a sort of substances. In one point, however, there is some resemblance between a paradoxical Vaiseshika opinion and a distinct Gaina doctrine. According to the Vaiseshika there are four kinds of bodies: bodies of earth, as those of men, animals, &c.; bodies of water in the world of Varuna; bodies of fire in the world of Agni; and bodies of wind in the world of Vayu. This curious opinion has its counterpart in Gainism; for the Gainas, 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 Vaiseshika opinion, though probably derived from the same current of thought, is an adaptation of it to popular mythology. I make no doubt that the Gaina opinion is much more primitive and belongs to an older stage in the development of philosophical thought than the Vaiseshika assumption of four kinds of bodies.
Though I am of opinion that between Vaiseshika and Gainism 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 Vedantins and Sankhyas go directly counter to those of the Gainas, and the latter could not adopt them without breaking with their religion. But they could go a part of their way together with the Vaiseshika, and still retain their religious persuasion. We need, therefore, not wonder that among the writers on the Nyaya-Vaiseshika some names of Gainas occur. The Gainas themselves go still farther, and maintain that the Vaiseshika philosophy was established by a schismatical teacher of theirs, Khaluya Rohagutta of the Kausika Gotra, with whom originated the sixth schism of the Gainas, the Trairasika-matam, in 544 A. V. (18 A. D.) The details of this system given in the Avasyaka, vv. 77-83, are apparently reproduced from Kanada’s Vaiseshika Darsana; 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 Vaiseshika Darsana I, 1, 6.
I believe that in this case, as in many others, the Gainas 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 Gaina legend is the following. The Vaiseshika 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 Sutras, viz. Kanada of the Kasyapa Gotra. No trace has been found in Brahmanical literature that the name of the real author of the Vaiseshika was Rohagupta, and his Gotra the Kausika Gotra; nor can Rohagupta and Kanada be taken as different names of the same person, because their Gotras also differ. Kanada, follower of Kanada, means etymologically crow-eater, owl; hence his system has been nicknamed Aulukya Darsana, owl-philosophy . In Rohagupta’s second name, Khuluya, which stands for Shaduluka , allusion is made to the ‘owl,’ probably to the Kanadas; but the Gainas refer uluka to the Gotra of the Rohagupta, viz. Kausika , which word also means owl. As the unanimous tradition of the Brahmans deserves the preference before that of the Gainas, we can most easily account for the latter by assuming that Rohagupta did not invent, but only adopted the Vaiseshika philosophy to support his schismatical views.
About the two works translated in this volume, the Uttaradhyayana and Sutrakritanga, 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 Sutrakritanga is probably the older of the two, as it is the second Anga, and the Angas obtain the foremost rank among the canonical books of the Gainas, while the Uttaradhyayana, the first Mulasutra, belongs to the last section of the Siddhanta. According to the summary in the fourth Anga the object of the Sutrakritanga 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 Mahavira 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 . 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 Uttaradhyayana resembles the Sutrakritanga with regard to its object and part of the subjects treated; but it is of greater extent than the original part of the Sutrakritanga, 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 Gainas, 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 Angas took place at an early period (tradition places it under Bhadrabahu); that the other works of the Siddhanta 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 Devardhiganin (980 AV. = 454 A. D.)
I have based my translation of the Uttaradhyayana and Sutrakritanga 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 Uttaradhyayana (Samvat 1936 = 1879 A. D.) contains, besides a Guzerati gloss, the Sutradipika of Lakshmivallabha, pupil of Lakshmikirtiganin of the Kharatara Gakkha. Older than this commentary is the Tika of Devendra, which I have made my principal guide. It was composed in Samvat 1179 or 1123 A. D., and is confessedly an abstract from Santyakarya’s Vritti, which I have not used. But I have had at my disposal an illuminated old MS. of the Avakuri, belonging to the Strassburg University Library. This work is apparently an abstract from the Vritti of Santyakarya, as in a great many passages it almost verbally agrees with Devendra’s work.
The Bombay edition of the Sutrakritanga (Samvat 1936 or 1880 A. D.) contains three commentaries: (1) Silanka’s Tika, in which is incorporated Bhadrabahu’s Niryukti. This is the oldest commentary extant; but it was not without predecessors, as Silanka occasionally alludes to old commentators. Silanka lived in the second half of the ninth century A. D., as he is said to have finished his commentary on the Akaranga Sutra in the Saka year 798 or 876 A. D. (2) The Dipika, an abstract from the last by Harshakula, which was composed in Samvat 1583 or 1517 AD. I have also used a MS. of the Dipika in my possession. (3) Pasakandra’s Balavabodha, a Guzerati gloss. — My principal guide was, of course, Silanka; when he and Harshakula agree, I refer to them in my notes as the ‘commentators;’ I name Silanka 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 page 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 Gaina 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 Uttaradhyayana 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.
Uttaradhyayana
First Lecture
On Discipline.
I shall explain in due order the discipline of a houseless monk, who has got rid of all worldly ties. Listen to me. (1)
But a monk who, on receiving an order from his superior, does not walk up to him, being insubordinate and inattentive, is called ill-behaved. (3)
As a bitch with sore ears is driven away everywhere, thus a bad, insubordinate, and talkative (pupil) is turned out. (4)
