SuttaCentral
Maybe they will!
Do you know what the mutual intelligibility is like between Ardhamāgadhī / Jain Prakrit and Pāḷi? I was thinking that I may try and expose myself to some Jain Prakrit texts after being comfortable with Pāḷi and trying to learn to comprehend it via pure exposure and some minimal formal study.
Well check it out here:
https://gretil.sub.uni-goettingen.de/gretil.html#Prakrit
U/1 viṇayasuyaṃ prathamam adhyayanam /
saṃjogā vippamukkassa | aṇagārassa bhikkhuṇo /
viṇayaṃ pāukarissāmi | āṇupuvviṃ suṇeha me ||1||
Pretty similar!
It is indeed puzzling that this other ‘Magadhan’ religion of five precepts and 24 buddhas gets so little attention compared to even the oldest Vedism. One could do worse than take a look at the bibliography here: https://serval.unil.ch/resource/serval:BIB_4E6A35E6B579.P001/REF
I’m afraid some of the relevant research is not easy to find outside of India, even outside of Gujarat!
IIRC Bhikkhu Anālayo researched how the 24 Buddhas were a later development in response to Jainism to establish Buddhism as a historically valid / authentic “religion” due to having a lineage. I think it’s likely that a lot of Jain-Buddhist interaction is post the life of the Buddha, because it’s one of the major sramanic religions in competition with Buddhism in the region. There’s even that sutta on kamma and the brahmavihārās? (citation needed!!) which seems to be pulled straight from Jain ideology and is demonstrably later.
The Buddha seemed a lot more versed in responding to Brahminism than Jainism, which he seems to have mostly heard about from convert disciples or debates. This is still extremely relevant to Buddhology and understanding the suttas though, and I’m sure the Buddha / his disciples based models off of other Jain/sramanic archetypal training rules. Don’t the Jains have a monastic code somewhat like the Vinaya or proto-Vinaya?
Thanks for the recommendation!
You may want to have a look at the Chedasūtras of the Śvetāmbaras, but I believe the Jain ascetic lifestyle does not really have a single source.
The Buddha is supposed to have been touring the same area as Mahavir, with both being at Nālandā once and having a bizarre ‘remote’ debate. Also, there is the famous absence of the Buddha in the Jain scriptures, even in the ecumenical ‘Sayings of the Seers’ (Isibhāsiyāiṁ), which does include Buddhists. Richard Gombrich claims that the Buddha’s austerities were Jain, though the comparison is never made in the texts—yet another intentional silence? (But later, in the first public declaration of Enlightenment, the buddha calls himself ‘omniscient’ and—a jina.)
From the Buddhist side, there is the lack of an encounter with Mahavir after decades of contact between the communities and of visiting similar places; you can debate him, but not see him. From the Jain side, the Buddha does not exist. This mutual circumvention is mysterious and perhaps deliberate. Some (K. C. Jain, M. B. Baura) have speculated that Devadatta might be a broken bridge between the two traditions. I guess only Kevala jñāna knows the reason.
This is interesting, actually. The Buddha is corrected on how the Jains refer to deeds/kamma by one of the disciples. This is another indicator, to me, that the Buddha was not very well versed in Jainism.
I just wrote a post about this actually. I personally am starting to think that we have good reason to think his austerities were just extensions of his former Brahminical-ish training (I say “Brahminical-ish” because we don’t know the exact nature of his training, but it was almost certainly some kind of ascetic, muni-based Brahminical circle). I think that, after realizing that his teachers had not realized liberation, he decided to travel off and live a more austere extreme lifestyle in line with many ascetics in Brahminical circles at the time. He says that he realized he needed to seclude himself from sensuality on his own, so he took it to an extreme, before eventually realizing a more balanced approach that was still very practical and restraint-based.
Interesting. From the Buddhist texts, Mahāvīra certainly exists, so perhaps this is more deliberate from the Jains? I feel if the Bodhisatta had been one of their own—even if only the Buddhists believed so—then there’s a high likelihood would have claimed it (but we can’t assume that this must be the case of course).
The explanation I have heard, and one that I came to doubt, is that the Buddha was then a nobody not worth paying attention to, whereas the Jains were the bigwigs of asceticism of the time (according to some, the root).
I know your essay, Bhante, but I fail to see the connection with the sort of speculation that K. C. Jain was proposing (some degree of Jain learning on Devadatta’s part):
Rather weak in my opinion, but proof that there has been some thought on the matter from the other side.
That his proposed rules bear some similarity to Jain ascetic practices is perhaps an indication that he was familiar with them… but using that knowledge for his own ends is very far from “being a bridge between the two traditions”
Fair enough. But I think his argument is less than weak, it’s nothing.
He reads into the Abharajakumarasutta (MN 58), saying “it was not without reason that Mahāvīra has been represented … as personally interested in the welfare of Devadatta …”.
It’s true that this shows that (according to the Buddhists) Mahavira knew of Devadatta, and hence was well-acquainted with the Buddhist goings-on. But it doesn’t show him being interested in Devadatta’s welfare, just in using the case of Devadatta to catch the Buddha out in a gotcha. (Also worth noting that this passage does not appear to have any parallels that confirm Mahavira talking about Devadatta.)
Of course one can argue that the Buddhist text is biassed, but this just weakens the case. If your first move is to undermine the reliability of your only source, you need better sources.
More generally, I wonder whether the problem “why do we not have a record of the Buddha talking to Mahavira” is really a problem.
Consider: how many records in modern times do we have of the leaders of religions (I mean the top leaders, Popes and the like) actively debating issues in public with other leaders? Sure, they’ll do interfaith meetings, but they mostly stay on the surface. There’s not really serious debate at that level. It tends to happen with folks lower down on the totem pole (like me!).
What about other cases historically? Do we have a record of Yajnavalkya debating contemporary non-brahmin ascetics (we do not!). Or top-level debates between Confucians and Taoists? Or a debate between Shankara and leading contemporary Buddhists? Or between the Pope and the Archbishop of the Anglican Church? Or between Jesus and a leading neo-Platonic philosopher? Or between Mohamed and the head of a Christian or Jewish denomination?
I dunno, I feel like such encounters are rare if they happen at all, and the case of the Buddha and Mahavira is really just one example of a wider phenomenon. If that’s the case, the interesting question is, “why do the leaders of religions not debate each other?”
That stuff was common knowledge. And it’s likely the Jains weren’t vegetarian.
Well, I thought a Jain proposing that a Buddhist was trying to slip a little of Jainism into Buddhism wouldn’t ascribe bad motives.
It certainly is. However, if there’s something valuable in Jain’s section it’s the list of intermediaries they used when (as he kindly puts it) ‘they felt interested in knowing and discussing each other’s views’. More than I remembered! But of course, intermediaries are also geographically useful.
This touches on an interesting topic. @Oscar may know more, but it seems like most, if not all, the Jain texts we have are quite late and post-date the Buddha. I assume they draw from earlier sources and maybe plenty of the content is early, but it seems like it’s just a complete mystery as to precise dating from what I’ve read. The fact that there’s an entire school that claims that they don’t have any authentic texts is itself somewhat indicative. IDK the full story though.
It’s hard to know whether they are difficult to date per se or whether that’s the result of having only a tiny handful of scholars doing primary research, and publishing in such similar languages as English and Gujarati. (I’m not one of them, by the way; just interested.)
Perhaps there’s a selection bias here: those spiritual movements whose leaders did debate (and lost) didn’t survive long enough for us to remember them as “religions” How many of the Buddha’s interlocutors would have gone on to be religious leaders in their own right if they hadn’t met the Buddha?
Maybe. I wonder if it’s to do with institutional dignity. If the big bosses debate, it would would become a circus, all the followers would be contesting, and it’d just inflame tensions in an chaotic and unhelpful way.
I found the link between karma and karmic retribution to sanna (the framing of forms in light of past experience) to be fascinating. For the first time in my life I think karma and karmic retribution made sense. Sanna creates our visceral sense of being in the world. Our past experiences (karma) make that a heaven or hell(retribution). It also motivates the requirement to fully understand sanna in Snp 4.2.
I think things go south (sorry Australians) when abstract notions of self are considered. It is interesting when she says that Brahmans didn’t necessarily think the Buddha’s teachings contradicted their own.
I would like to contact the author about with a question regarding the last point, but couldn’t find an email address for her.
Agreed! Lots to think about and reflect on 
Yes, like I wrote in my post, I think she was simply mistaken here and that can be easily demonstrated. The very texts she was working with (the sutta nipāta) starts the Pārāyanavagga off by saying that nāmarūpa (manifest/conditioned existence) is only escaped with the cessation of consciousness, which paññā is inseparable from (MN 43).
I think it works fine with the Atthakavagga. The Parayanavagga seems to be a move away from the visceral self to an abstract one. In my opinion, it was unfortunate. The issue with the parayanavagga from the perspective of the Atthakavagga is that the Parayanavagga and its abstract notions of self are predicated on views. The Atthakavagga is predicated on experience.