The History of Buddhist Thought c17.42

c17.42

It has been said that the annihilation of karma is the aim of the disciple, and that this constitutes salvation. This is only indirectly true in the sense that karma is produced by craving or by craving in the three forms of greed, hatred, and stupidity.³ The mere absence or neutralizing of karma without the destruction of its cause is vain. On this point Buddhism was in direct opposition to Jainism. The actual historical relations of Buddhism to Jainism do not here concern us. We find certain doctrines discussed and opposed, but the actual historical statements are due to a later tradition, and their interpretation is a matter of dispute. We find the Jains, under the name of Nigaṇṭhas, represented as holding the doctrines of the omniscience of their leader and of the annihilation of karma as the means of obtaining release. But the Achelakas, the naked ascetics, are also opposed, and their practices of austerity are much the same as what we know of the Jains. There is a sutta in which a Nigaṇṭha gives a list of these practices, but he attributes them to other teachers. Jacobi consequently held that the original Nigaṇṭhas were the followers of Pārśva, the predecessor of Mahāvīra, and that Mahāvīra, the Jain leader, probably borrowed the rigid rules from the Achelakas or Ājīvikas, the followers of Gosāla.¹ Here the naked ascetics concern us only as the representatives of a rival way of salvation.