The Mauryan Polity c11.t3: Views of Dr. Jacobi
The Mauryan Polity c11.t3
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Views of Dr. Jacobi
c11.t3.1
The ripe scholar Hermann Jacobi who is competent to speak with authority on these matters has justification for holding the opinion which we quote below:
c11.t3.2
"From the comparison which we have just instituted between the rules for the Brahmanic ascetic and those for the Jaina monk it will be apparent that the latter is but a copy of the former. It may be assumed that the Nirgrantha copied the Buddhist Bhikku who himself was but a copy of the Sannyāsin. This suggestion is not a probable one, for, there being a model of higher antiquity and authority, the Jainas would probably have conformed rather to it than to the less respected and second-hand model of their rivals, the Buddhists."¹ We see that the germs of dissenting sects like those of the Buddhists and the Jainas were contained in the institute of the fourth *āśrama*, and that the latter was the model of the heretical sects; therefore Buddhism and Jainism must be regarded "as religions developed out of Brahmanism, not by a sudden reformation, but prepared by a religious movement going on for a long time."²
c11.t3.3
¹ Jaina Sūtras, Pt. I, Intro., p. 29. S.B.E., Vol. XXII.
c11.t3.4
² Ibid., p. 32.