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 uncaused 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 philosophy ^: Kriyavada, Akriyavada, A^;/anavada, and Vainayikav^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 Agnosticism 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 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 6^ainas 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 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 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 (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. Consequently 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 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 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.
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 alreadypointed out above, in the note on p. xxvi, that the expression 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 paradoxical 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 distinguish between A/C'elakas and Niga7///^as; e. g. in Buddhaghosa'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 adhyahrz'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 introduced 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 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 G^ainas, 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 6^aina 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 G^aina 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 A'akravartins or Tirthakaras. This is, of course, a mere conjecture of mine; but it would account for the strange hagiology of the 6^ainas, 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 1 As I have said above and in note 2. p. 119, this difference has probably given rise to the division of the church into ^vetambaras and Digambaras. But these two branches have not directly grown out of the party of Parj-va and that of Mahavira; for both recognise Mahavira as a Tirthakara.
^ Mahavira must have been a great man in his way, and an eminent leader among his contemporaries; he owed the position of a Tirthakara probably not so much to the sanctity of his life, as to his success in propagating his creed.
INTRODUCTION. XXXlll 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 6^ainas, 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 Caina church consists in my turning to account the alleged existence of followers of Par.yva in the time of Mahavira, a tradition which seems to be almost unanimously accepted by modern scholars.
If G^ainism 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 Caina 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, Gama ethics are for their greater part based on primitive animism, it must have extensively existed in large classes of Indian society when G^ainism 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 Cainism has in common with the oldest Brahmanical philosophies, Vedanta and Sahkhya. 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 [45] c XXxiv GAINA SUTRAS.
joy itself. In the Saiikhya the nature of punish a or soul is similarly defined as being intelligence or light; and the three guwas are described as goodness, energy, and delusion, or light, colour, and darkness; yet these gu;^as 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 6^aina texts usually speak only of substances, dravyas, and their development or modifications, paryayas; and when they mention gu;/as, 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-Vai^eshika 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 G^ainas 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, d harm a and ad harm a, 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 Vai^eshikas 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 Vaij-eshika philosophy (which defines substance as the substratum of qualities, and quality as that w^hich is inherent in substance), Cainism would almost certainly not have adopted such confused ideas as those just expounded.
1 That this was the primitive conception of the Vedic Hindus has been noted by Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda, p. 317 f.
INTRODUCTION. XXXV From the preceding remarks it will be evident that I do not agree with Bhandarkar ^, who claims a late origin for (7ainism, because, on some points, it entertains the same views as the Vai^eshika. The Vaij-eshika 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 Ka;i?ada, 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 Galnas may be accused. I must, however, remark that Bhandarkar believes the G^ainas to hold, on the points presently to be discussed, a view ' which is of the nature of a compromise between the Sahkhyas and the Vedantins on the one hand and the Vaij"eshika 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: (i) both G^ainism and Vaij-eshika 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 Saiikhya hold that they are the same (satkarya); (3) that they distinguish qualities from their substratum (dravya).
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 (i) 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 con- XXXVl GAINA SUTRAS.
elusion 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 Vaij-eshika, as are the result of a peculiar train of reasoning, e.g. that space (d\s) and air (akai-a) are two separate substances, do not recur in G^ainism. For in it, as well as in the older Brahmanical systems, Vedanta and Saiikhya, space and air are not yet distinguished from one another, but ^kai'a is made to serve for both.
Some other instances of difference in fundamental doctrines between Vaii-eshikas and G^ainas 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 Vai^eshikas make dharma and adharma qualities of the soul, while, as has been said above, the Cainas look on them as a sort of substances. In one point, however, there is some resemblance between a paradoxical Vaij-eshika opinion and a distinct Gaina doctrine. According to the Vai.yeshika there are four kinds of bodies: bodies of earth, as those of men, animals, &c.; bodies of water in the world of Varu;/a; bodies of fire in the world of Agni; and bodies of wind in the world of Vayu. This curious opinion has its counterpart in (9ainism; for the Cainas, too, assume Earthbodies, 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 Vai^eshika opinion, though probably derived from the same current of thought, is an adaptation of it to popular mythology. I make no doubt that the 6^aina opinion is much more primitive and INTRODUCTION. XXXVll belongs to an older stage in the development of philosophical thought than the Vaij-eshika assumption of four kinds of bodies.