The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c18.42

v1.c18.42

Buddha had at first sought freedom from *karman*, or the bondage of ‘works,’ and from transmigration in exaggerated self-torture: but he soon found that this was not the way to peace; and consequently he did not enforce upon his followers the practice of too hard self-penance but advised them to follow a middle way, that is to say, a simple life but one free from self-torture. Mahāvīra also had practised asceticism but with a different result; for he had found in its severest forms the road to deliverance, and did not hesitate to recommend nakedness, self-torture, and death by starvation as the surest means of reaching final annihilation; and the Jains proud of their own austerities often stigmatise the Buddhists as given to greed and luxury. Buddha always warned his disciples against hurting or causing pain to any living being; but Mahāvīra fell into exaggerations even here, and he seems in reality often to care much more for the security of animals and plants than for that of human beings. Such instances of a deep-rooted divergence in views could easily be multiplied; but what has been already pointed out is sufficient to prove that the Jains and Buddhists were in fact too far asunder to be able to inflict any very serious damage on each other. But this does not mean, however, that rivalry and hatred did not exist between them: such feelings certainly did exist, and we need not doubt that these rivals did their best to annoy each other according to their abilities and opportunities.