AA00001764 ( .Pdf )

FULL TEXT OF THE ADDRESS. BY Dr. TUKARAM KRISHNA LADDU B. A. (Cantub) Ph. D. (Halle a/s). M.R.A.S., M.A.S.B., M.G.O. Professor of Sanskrit Epigraphy Queen's College. PRESIDENT AT THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY ON December 25, 26, 1914. Published by The Hong Secretary THE SYADVADA MAHAVIDYALAYA Printed by Pandya Gulah Shanker, at te Tara Printing works. BENARES. 1914 FULL TEXT OF THE ADDRESS BY Dr. TUKARAM KRISHNA LADDU, B. A. (Cantab), Ph. D. (Halle a/s). M. R. A. S., M. A. S. B., M. G. O. S. , Professor of Sanskrit and Epigraphy Queen’s College, PRESIDENT. AT THE TEHTH ANNlVERSARY The Syadyada Jaina Mahavidyalaya, BENARES. -------------♦♦♦------------- Gentlemen, Before I begin to deal with the main subject of my speech, I take this opportunity to express my thanks to you for the honour done to me by calling me to preside on this occasion. T am, however, sorry that for want of time, I cannot do something like justice to this fascinating subject which comes within the range of the Indian Antiquarian topics with which I have been occupied for sometime past. A number of European and Indian scholars have been trying to unravel the past of this hoary India and reputed savants like Dr. Weber and Dr. Jacobi have contri buted much to our knowledge of the early history of Jainism. I am quite a novice to this subject yet and must, at the outset of my speech, warn you not to expect any new theories and hypotheses which one can put forward only after a deep study of the subject which I have not done yet. I intend, therefore, to sum ( 2 ) up the main results arrived at by other scholars who have worked and have been working in this line of research, as a preliminary paper on this subject, wishing to take it up in future for further investigation, and I shall try in this speech to present a clear picture of Jainism as we know to-day. Early History or Jainism. In our inquiry, the first question that presents itself to us, is, who was the founder of Jainism ? When did he live ? AV hat was the necessity for a new religion ? What was the state of the Society in which he appeared ? In short, what is the early history of this religion " These questions are natural and appear to be simple but the problems of the early history of a people or their institutions are the hardest to solve when there is no reliable history written by the people concerned. This is unfortunately the case with the early history of India. There is, however, one consolation, although not very satisfactory, namely, we have a vast amount of literature on the subject dealing with the religious beliefs of ancient India. I say. this source of our information is not satis factory even as regards our inquiry about religion itself, because most of the -acred books were written centuries after they had been com|>osed and by the followers of the respective religions. A comparative study of the rival religions and their sacred books is therefore the only wav to arrive at a tolerably reliable inform ation on the subject. In the matter of our present inquiry, we have, thus, to study the two rival religions, Buddhism and Jainism, in order to get some trustworthy account of either. About Buddhism we know ( » ) tlmt it was Founded by one Siddhartha Gautama belonging to the Silkya chin. He was a Ksnttriyn prince, Imrn in about 563 B. 0. and died in about 483 B. C. Mahavira, on the other hand, who is known ns X'ardhamana Jftataputra, Jina, etc., is supposed to have lived from about 59!) B. C. to 527 B. C.* He was also a Ksat- triyn, belonging to the family of the Jfiiitas and was related from his mother’s side, to the king of Vaisiili. Iu his introduction to the translation of the Kalpasutrns ( S. B. E. Vol. XXII. ) Prof. Jacobi gives the genealogy of Mahavira which shows the relationship of that Prophet with the king of VaiSali. Mahavira’s father Siddhartha had two wives Devanandn, a Brahmani and Trisala, a Ksattriyani. The latter was the sister of Cetaka, the king of Vaisiili. This relationship should be borne in mind. It will ellucidate some historical incidents shortly to be referred-to. From the dates given above, it will be apparent that Siddh artha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, better known as the Buddha ( the enlightened ) was a contemporary of Mahavira Vardhainana, but younger. Scholars who have investigated into the early history of Jainism are not unanimous in their view as to what position Mahavira occupies in his connection with Jainism. There were some like Dr. Weber and Prof. Lassen who had given out that Jainism was only an offshoot of Buddhism. There are others forming the majority, who think tltat Mahavira founded Jainism, while there are some, like Prof. Jacobi, who feel inclined to take the origin further back, to Piirsvanatha, who was the predecessor of Mahavira in the line 0 These datoa arc taken from Prof. Ilapaon'a * Ancient India', published at ilia University Prose, Cambridge. 1911. Other dates have nko been proposed by other scholars. ( 1 ) of the twenty-four prophets, (with Mahavira us the last) as believed by the orthodox Jninas. To get to sonic decision on this point, we have to turn our attention to the oldest sacred books of the two religions. The Buddhist books, the subject matter of which has been believed to be very old, as old as some centuries before the Christian era, refer to the Jain sect not as a new oije or as one that is recently founded, but as one that already exists without saying anything definitely as to from when it began to exist. In the Jain sacred books whose antiquity, to use Prof. Jacobi’s words, “ can vie with (that of) the oldest books of northern Buddhists,” it appears that some of the disciples of Mahavira had approached the Buddha to refute his doctrine. Such incidents are again corroborated by the Buddhist books, and if true, will, by pointing to the anxiety felt by a religion at the rise of a new rival, show to us the older origin of the existing Jain religion. The Bauddhas as well as the Jainas have a long list of Prophets, the first of whom is believed to have lived at the beginning of this Kalpa, the present creation, but this tradition is of no use for the purpose of history. The first Tirthakara, as the Jain Prophet is called, namely, ]_>>abhadeva might be identical with the person of the same name referred to in the Bhagavuta Purana, and these Jain prophets, who were in fact great ascetics, at least some of them might l>e those referred to in the Puranas, whom the Hindus regard as great Rsis of old. All this is, however, only idle conjecture. We cannot trace any reliable history of Jainism beyond Vardhamiina Mah; ivira. This much, however, is certain, from what has been already said, that Jainism is older than Buddhism and was founded probably by some one, either Piirsvanatlia or some earlier Tirtha kara who had lived before the time of Mahavira. ( * ) Professor Lassen who believed the priority of Buddhism has put forward four arguments in support of his theory. Prof. Jacobi has convincingly refuted all of them in his introduction to his translation of the Kalp Sutras of the Jainas. Prof. Lassen says that Jainism is younger than Buddhism because, in the first place “.both sects give the same titles to their prophets : Jina, Arhat, Mahavira, Sarvajfia, Sugata, Tathiigata, Siddha, Buddha, Sambud- dha, etc.” secondly, “both sects worship mortal men, their prophets, like gods, and erect statues of them in their temples", thirdly, “ that the Buddhists and Jainas measure the history of the world by those enormous periods of time which bewilder and awe even the most imaginative fancy,” and fourthly, that both the sects lay a special stress on the principle of Ahimsii, not killing of living beings. It is true that in the literature of both the sects occur all the names mentioned above with reference to Mahavira and Buddha but on a minute examination, it becomes apparent that there is a partiality for some of the titles in the Jain books and for others in the Buddhist works. The Jainas prefer to designate Vardhamana as Mahavira, Arhat, Jina etc, whereas the Baudhas more often call their prophet the Buddha, Sugata, Tathagata etc. Whenever the Jainas gave Buddha as the name to Mahavira, they probably wauted to imply that lie was enligh tened. Similarly, the Bauddhas probably used the present Jain terms irf their literal sense when they applied them to their prophet. All these names, most probably, were at first used in their etymological sense only and were later on segregated into two different groups, acquiring the sense of permanent cphithets. Deification of the prophets and worship of their images is a very old institution in India and plays an important role in Indian ( 6 ) religions. As far as Hinduism is concerned, its origin goes back to the hoary past of the Vedic times, to the Vedic sacrifice, which itself was invented to court the favour of the divine powers of Nature to satisfy the temporal as well as spiritual wants of the people. Symbolic representation of the gods, who arc supposed to be the benefactors, comes quite naturally in the course of the development of religious notions of the early people.

Load more