the sect in the Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal for 1898.
Several scholars—notably Bhagvanlāl Indrajī, Mr Lewis Rice and
Hofrath Bühler[1]—have treated of the remarkable archaeological
discoveries lately made. These confirm the older records in many
details, and show that the Jains, in the centuries before the Christian
era, were a wealthy and important body in widely separated parts
of India.
Jainism.—The most distinguishing outward peculiarity of Mahā-vīra and of his earliest followers was their practice of going quite naked, whence the term Digambara. Against this custom, Gotama, the Buddha, especially warned his followers; and it is referred to in the well-known Greek phrase, Gymnosophist, used already by Megasthenes, which applies very aptly to the Nigaṇṭhas. Even the earliest name Nigaṇṭha, which means “free from bonds,” may not be without allusions to this curious belief in the sanctity of nakedness, though it also alluded to freedom from the bonds of sin and of transmigration. The statues of the Jinas in the Jain temples, some of which are of enormous size, are still always quite naked; but the Jains themselves have abandoned the practice, the Digambaras being sky-clad at meal-time only, and the Svetāmbaras being always completely clothed. And even among the Digambaras it is only the recluses or Yatis, men devoted to a religious life, who carry out this practice. The Jain laity—the Srāvakas, or disciples—do not adopt it.
The Jain views of life were, in the most important and essential respects, the exact reverse of the Buddhist views. The two orders, Buddhist and Jain, were not only, and from the first, independent, but directly opposed the one to the other. In philosophy the Jains are the most thorough-going supporters of the old animistic position. Nearly everything, according to them, has a soul within its outward visible shape—not only men and animals, but also all plants, and even particles of earth, and of water (when it is cold), and fire and wind. The Buddhist theory, as is well known, is put together without the hypothesis of “soul” at all. The word the Jains use for soul is jīva, which means life; and there is much analogy between many of the expressions they use and the view that the ultimate cells and atoms are all, in a more or less modified sense, alive. They regard good and evil and space as ultimate substances which come into direct contact with the minute souls in everything. And their best-known position in regard to the points most discussed in philosophy is Syād-vāda, the doctrine that you may say “Yes” and at the same time “No” to everything. You can affirm the eternity of the world, for instance, from one point of view, and at the same time deny it from another; or, at different times and in different connexions, you may one day affirm it and another day deny it. This position both leads to vagueness of thought and explains why Jainism has had so little influence over other schools of philosophy in India. On the other hand, the Jains are as determined in their views of asceticism (tapas) as they were compromising in their views of philosophy. Any injury done to the “souls” being one of the worst of iniquities, the good monk should not wash his clothes (indeed, the most austere will reject clothes altogether), nor even wash his teeth, for fear of injuring living things. “Subdue the body, chastise thyself, weaken thyself, just as fire consumes dry wood.” It was by suppressing, through such self-torture, the influence on his soul of all sensations that the Jain could obtain salvation. It is related of the founder himself, the Mahā-vīra, that after twelve years’ penance he thus obtained Nirvāna (Jacobi, Jaina Sūtras, i. 201) before he entered upon his career as a teacher. And through the rest of his life, till he died at Pāvā, shortly before the Buddha, he followed the same habit of continual self-mortification. The Buddha, on the other hand, obtained Nirvāna in his 35th year, under the Bo tree, after he had abandoned penance; and through the rest of his life he spoke of penance as quite useless from his point of view.
There is no manual of Jainism as yet published, but there is a great deal of information on various points in the introductions to the works referred to above. Professor Jacobi, who is the best authority on the history of this sect, thus sums up the distinction between the Mahā-vīra and the Buddha: “Mahā-vīra was rather of the ordinary class of religious men in India. He may be allowed a talent for religious matters, but he possessed not the genius which Buddha undoubtedly had. . . . The Buddha’s philosophy forms a system based on a few fundamental ideas, whilst that of Mahā-vīra scarcely forms a system, but is merely a sum of opinions (pannattis) on various subjects, no fundamental ideas being there to uphold the mass of metaphysical matter. Besides this. . .it is the ethical element that gives to the Buddhist writings their superiority over those of the Jains. Mahā-vīra treated ethics as corollary and subordinate to his metaphysics, with which he was chiefly concerned.”
Additional Authorities.—Bhadrabāhu’s Kalpa Sūtra, the recognized and popular manual of the Svetāmbara Jains, edited with English introduction by Professor Jacobi (Leipzig, 1879); Hemacandra’s “Yoga S’āstram,” edited by Windisch, in the Zeitschrift der deutschen morg. Ges. for 1874; “Zwei Jaina Stotra,” edited in the Indische Studien, vol. xv.; Ein Fragment der Bhagavatī, by Professor Weber; Mémoires de l’Académie de Berlin (1866); Nirayāvaliya Sutta, edited by Dr Warren, with Dutch introduction (Amsterdam, 1879); Over de godsdienstige en wijsgeerige Begrippen der Jainas, by Dr Warren (his doctor-dissertation, Zwolle, 1875); Beiträge zur Grammatik des Jaina-prākrit, by Dr Edward Müller (Berlin, 1876); Colebrooke’s Essays, vol. ii. Mr J. Burgess has an exhaustive account of the Jain Cave Temples (none older than the 7th century) in Fergusson and Burgess’s Cave Temples in India (London, 1880).
See also Hopkins’ Religions of India (London, 1896), pp. 280–96, and J. G. Bühler On the Indian Sect of the Jainas, edited by J. Burgess (London, 1904). (T. W. R. D.)
JAIPUR, or Jeypore, a city and native state of India in the
Rajputana agency. The city is a prosperous place of comparatively
recent date. It derives its name from the famous
Maharaja Jai Singh II., who founded it in 1728. It is built of
pink stucco in imitation of sandstone, and is remarkable for the
width and regularity of its streets. It is the only city in India
that is laid out in rectangular blocks, and it is divided by cross
streets into six equal portions. The main streets are 111 ft.
wide and are paved, while the city is lighted by gas. The
regularity of plan, and the straight streets with the houses all
built after the same pattern, deprive Jaipur of the charm of the
East, while the painted mud walls of the houses give it the
meretricious air of stage scenery. The huge palace of the
maharaja stands in the centre of the city. Another noteworthy
building is Jai Singh’s observatory. The chief industries are in
metals and marble, which are fostered by a school of art, founded
in 1868. There is also a wealthy and enterprising community
of native bankers. The city has three colleges and several
hospitals. Pop. (1901), 160,167. The ancient capital of Jaipur
was Amber.
The State of Jaipur, which takes its name from the city, has a total area of 15,579 sq. m. Pop. (1901), 2,658,666, showing a decrease of 6% in the decade. The estimated revenue is £430,000, and the tribute £27,000. The centre of the state is a sandy and barren plain 1,600 ft. above sea-level, bounded on the E. by ranges of hills running north and south. On the N. and W. it is bounded by a broken chain of hills, an offshoot of the Aravalli mountains, beyond which lies the sandy desert of Rajputana. The soil is generally sandy. The hills are more or less covered with jungle trees, of no value except for fuel. Towards the S. and E. the soil becomes more fertile. Salt is largely manufactured and exported from the Sambhar lake, which is worked by the government of India under an arrangement with the states of Jaipur and Jodhpur. It yields salt of a very high quality. The state is traversed by the Rajputana railway, with branches to Agra and Delhi.
The maharaja of Jaipur belongs to the Kachwaha clan of Rajputs, claiming descent from Rama, king of Ajodhya. The state is said to have been founded about 1128 by Dhula Rai, from Gwalior, who with his Kachwahas is said to have absorbed or driven out the petty chiefs. The Jaipur house furnished to the Moguls some of their most distinguished generals. Among them were Man Singh, who fought in Orissa and Assam; Jai
- ↑ The Hatthi Gumphā and three other inscriptions at Cuttack (Leyden, 1885); Sravana Belgola inscriptions (Bangalore, 1889); Vienna Oriental Journal, vols. ii.-v.; Epigraphia Indica, vols. i-vii.
