JAINISM AND BUDDHISM
Jainism and Buddhism have a common origin in the
culture of world-renunciation that developed in India
from around the seventh century B.C.E. This common
origin can be confirmed by the many similarities be-
tween their respective ancient codes of practice, and
the two traditions have always shared an acceptance of
the transformative powers of human effort in effect-
ing freedom from REBIRTH.
Although evidence beyond that afforded by parti-
san texts is not available, Jainism can be judged to be
the older religion because from a relatively early pe-
riod it claimed as authoritative a teacher called Pars ́va,
who can reasonably be dated to around two centuries
before the Buddha. Mahavra, who is generally cred-
ited with being the “founder” of Jainism, appears to
have built upon Pars ́va’s teachings. Jainism eventually
located Pars ́va and Mahavra as the twenty-third and
twenty-fourth of a succession of teachers called ford-
maker (tlrthan ̇kara) or conqueror (jina). The word jina
is the source of the Sanskrit name Jaina,used to refer
to a follower of these teachers, although the earliest
term to designate them was nigantha(bondless). While
early Buddhism developed a succession of twenty-five
buddhas, most likely under the influence of Jainism,
both traditions assert that their teachings are uncre-
ated, without beginning or end, and outside the para-
meters of historical time.
The date of Mahavra relies on synchronicity with
that of the Buddha, who is now regarded by scholars
as having lived in the fifth century B.C.E. Although the
two teachers were contemporaries who lived in the
same area of the Ganges basin, there is no record of
them having met. The San ̇glti-suttaof the Dlghanikaya
describes the strife that broke out in the Jain commu-
nity after Mahavra’s death and the Buddha’s contrast
of this with the stability of his own teaching and fol-
lowers. Mahavra, under the name of Nigantha Nata-
putta, is conventionally located by early Buddhist
scripture within a group of six rival ascetics (s ́ramana)
who taught a variety of false doctrines. Nigantha Nata-
putta is associated with a “fourfold restraint” with re-
gard to evil, which, in the light of the fact that Mahavra
taught five “great vows,” suggests that the early Bud-
dhists were familiar with members of the community
of the earlier Jain teacher, Pars ́va.
The Pali CANONviews the Jains in inimical terms
and frequently describes ascetic and lay followers of
Mahavra joining the Buddhist community. Jain doc-
trine advocated the existence of a permanent soul or
life monad (jlva) that changed only in respect to its
modifications, a standpoint also applied to reality as a
whole. Such a view was very much at variance with
Buddhist teaching, which denied the possibility of the
existence of entities that were not impermanent or
conditioned. Buddhism also rejected as fruitless Jain-
ism’s strong ascetic ethos, which held that only fasting
and intense forms of religious exercise would lead to
liberation. A further area of Jain teaching that the Bud-
dhists found inadequate was that of intentionality. Al-
though the Jains were aware of the role of mental
attitude in determining the moral tone of an action,
the Buddhists accused them of advocating a crude
mechanistic approach to agency and retribution.
The Jains, for their part, regarded the Buddhists as
incorrigibly lax in their behavior and as promoting a
view of the momentary nature of the world that verged
on nihilism in that moral retribution could not oper-
ate without some kind of permanent self. According383