Good evening Dhamma Friends ,
I’ve been looking at some Jain teachings because I was interested in knowing if Nigantha Nataputta in the Canon was the actual Mahavera of todays Jainism and in my rabbit hole I noticed that the Jains have the same story of the blind men and the elephant that is found in the suttas. But I believe the Lord Buddha was turning the meaning around on them. Does this sound right?
Hindus, and even Sufis, also have it.
As per the article below, Jains use it to explain their concepts of anekāntavāda (or “many-sidedness”) and syādvāda (“conditioned viewpoints”).
1 Like
(Ud 6.4 in case anyone reading along is looking for the sutta)
3 Likes
If you are interested at Buddhism and Jainism parallel sayings, texts, etc, you can read this comparative study of Buddhist Tipitaka and Jain Agama in 4 volumes, but too bad only vol. 1 & 2 has English translation (others are in Hindi language because this study was carried by a Indian Jain scholar and never translated into English):
Vol. 1 : Agama And Tripitaka Comparative Study - Jain Quantum
Vol. 2 : https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.125412
2 Likes