The Doctrine of the Jainas, Described after the Old Sources c6.40

Language: English

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§ 16. JACOBI expressed the idea¹ that among the Titthagara such men were admitted who were dear to those communities that had attached themselves to Mahāvīra. This would have its counterpart on a larger scale in the structure of the Hindu pantheon. Provided that Mahāvīra’s community really gained in strength by the incorporation of whole bodies of sects, we must, however, bear in mind that the Titthagara are separated from each other by “astronomical figures”, whereas those persons must have lived more or less distinctly in the memory of the contemporaries. As is the case with so many characters of the Brahman legends we can neither prove nor can we definitely dispute the assertion that the preachers of salvation relic on individual persons. The lowest rungs of the Titthagara ladder leading from primeval times up to the present are more or less clearly visible in the light of history.² Yet we would be more correct in saying that the ladder reaching from an historically attested experience on dogmatic grounds far up into the past is still hit by this light at a point not far from its foot. The question to be asked is how far up this is the case. We meet Ariṭṭhanemi in Nāya 5; Antag. 1-5; Vaṇhid.; Utt. 22. He is placed within the Kṛṣṇa circle as the brother-in-law of Kaṃsa; the scene is Dvāravatī (Bāravai).

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In spite of his being more frequently referred to than his precursors, yet Ariṭṭhanemi—he lived to the age of a thousand years—is by no means historically more tangible than they are. The only thing to be advanced might be that in the year of Mahāvīra’s Nirvāṇa he had been dead for 84,000 years (Jinac. 182f.), because it should be remembered that the figure of 84 or either of its plurals frequently appear with the Jains and elsewhere where they only fail to give precise details for something founded on fact. Acc. to Jinac. 184 Ariṭṭhanemi’s precursor, Nami, died half a million years back, and as is the case with all other figures in the lives of the Jinas, so these intervals, too, increase into the gigantic by retrogradation. Pāsa, however, acc. to Jinac. 168 f. died 250 years before Mv. (1230 minus 980) at an age of one hundred years. Ever since STEVENSON came to point out this moderation in quoting figures¹ these two dates have served as an argument for Pāsa's being an historic person, though what else we are told of him in Jiṇac. 149f. is merely a copy of Mahāvīra's biography with the exception that Pāsa is said to have been born in Benares and to have died on the Sammeya mountain in Bihar. Nor do we learn anything of importance² from Pāsa's role Nāyādh. II 1 and Pupph. 1, 3. But he is attested as a historic personality by other passages in rendering his teaching and reporting on his followers.

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Mahāvīra's parents are said to have belonged to Pāsa's lay-followers (*Pāsavaccijjā samaṇovasagā*, Āyār. II, 15, 16), and in his lifetime—as is confirmed by the Sāmaññaphala-Sutta of the Dīgha-Nikāya)³—there have been teachers (*P. jjā therā bhagavanto*, Viy. 134b, 247b) and monks (*aṇagāra*, Viy. 99a, 439a) in accordance with Pāsa's intentions. The word *avaccijja* (also Therāv. 2) indicates the spiritual filiation⁴. Pāsa was obviously of a winsome nature, for he bears the constant title of *puris' ādāṇiya* which seems to be the oldest precursor of the modern occasional titles of Lokamānya, Deśabandhu, Mahātman, etc. *ādāṇiya* means as much as *ādejja* which in the Karman theory stands for "suggestive"⁵. Both sects were on absolutely friendly terms, and for this we are given some valuable proof by the conversation of two of their leading representatives Rāyap.⁶ and Utt. 23⁷. We are assured (Viy. 247b, 454a) that already Pāsa had conceived both the shape and the eternity of the world (§ 103) in a way as taught by Mahāvīra, though (in the second passage) the latter insists that he came to discover it independently. Yet we are not able to draw any immediate inferences on Pāsa's system from this conception of his since the idea of a lower, an intermediate, and an upper world is in itself not singular. Mahāvīra's laymen are instructed (Viy.

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138a) by Pāsa teachers that self-discipline (*samjama*) leads to the suppression of the "influence" (*aṇaṇhaya*, § 168) and asceticism (*tava*) to purification (*vodāṇa*, also 140b), and to this Mahāvīra agrees. And yet, perhaps, he himself went beyond it, provided it was he who placed those two pairs into the causal association known, acc. to Ṭhāṇ. 156b, as: *savaṇa, nāṇa, vinnāṇa, paccakkhāṇa, a., t., v., akiriyā, nivvāṇa, siddhi-gai-gamaṇa-pajjava-sāṇa*. But it cannot be disputed that in practical ethics we see a development beyond Pāsa's ideas where the four-fold morality, the *cāujjāma dhamma*, is replaced by the *paṇca-mahavvaiya sapaḍikkamaṇa dh*. Pāsa's postulation (Rāyap. 118a; Ṭhāṇ. 201 a) was: not to damage anything living, not to commit anything untrue, and neither to take what has not ben given (*adinn'ādāṇāo veramaṇa*) nor to give away (*bahiddhādāṇāo v.*). The last word by Sthān. 202 a is taken as *bahirdhādāna* and commented as "accepting (*ādāna*) from outside", i.e. the accepting of things not belonging to the monk's standard outfit. This prohibition is said to include the "possession" of a female individual. Thus, as Abhayadeva adds, Pāsa's fourth commandment would correspond with Mahāvīra's both fourth and fifth (sexual abstention and non-possession (§ 171). The former of these two LEUMANN sees expressed in *bahiddhā-dāṇa* (sic), "a decent term for copulation¹ (the delivery of sperm)".

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Thus it is Pāsa's *third* vow that corresponds with both the third and fifth of Mahāvīra's including prohibition of any appropriation other than by gift as well as by acquisition. At any rate, it is a merit of Mahāvīra that he did away with a certain vagueness in the terms of his predecessor and made his fifth commandment applicable for both sexes. Utt. 23, 26f. and probably also 87 indicate that this act of extension was at the same time a process of revival, and this, to be sure, is the case, since it was in the nature of the two founders. Moreover, this is indicated by the above-mentioned view according to which the teaching experiences a decline until a new preacher of salvation comes to make his appearance. And it was also the difference existing between the teachings of Pāsa and Mahāvīra that had to be perpetuated within this view. This was done in a way (Viy. 791 b; Thāṇ. 201a) that all Titthagara prior to Pāsa are considered preachers of the cāujjāma dhamma with the exception of Usabha¹, and in the timeless continent of Mahāvideha (§ 113) it is even all 24. Likewise there is a difference being construed (Thāṇ. 296a) in that the same preachers of salvation including Pāsa had no difficult career as teachers whereas Usabha and Mahāvīra had (purima-pacchimāṇaṃ jiṇāṇaṃ duggamaṃ bhavai, tam-jahā: duāikkhaṃ duvibhajjaṃ dupassaṃ dutitikkhaṃ duraṇucaraṃ).

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It is possible, to be true, that the system handed down to us was complete already with Pāsa, though it fails to be probable, and certainly it cannot be proved. What is said by Āyār. II 15, 16 about the religious life and death of Mahāvīra’s parents is out of the question with regard to Pāsa’s teaching, particularly since it includes the confession (āloettā. . . paḍikkamittā). For it was by this confession that Mahāvīra’s rules differed from those of Pāsa, or else one would not have spoken of the panca-mahavvaiya sapaḍikkamaṇa dhamma in contrast with his cāujjāma dh. Mahāvīra appears as much too original a thinker than that he should have but repeated what had been in existence since long without adding something of his own.² Otherwise the system would show junctures. But this is not the case.