Major Delamaine on the Srdwacs or Jains. ^Q.'J 



worship at these caves, though they have not the emblems of the tirfhancaras 

 ilisposed exactly as in the present day, we can only conclude their present ar- 

 rangement of the twenty-four tirfhancaras to be made from earlier types and 

 appellations. Of changes in this respect frequent mention is made ; and in 

 Captain McMurdo's account of Parswanat'ha* GauriJca, ui the Bombay 

 Literary Transactions, he quotes a tradition that " they {Hemdchdrya and 

 the Raja) resolved to establish the worship of twenty-four idols, in the form 

 of the twenty-four avatdras of the Srawacs," &c. These are evidently 

 old gods under a new form, as they state them to have been introduced 

 2,500 years after Parswanat'ha, though he is the twenty-third on the 

 iist.t 



So far, then, the usual idea of the Jains being a modern sect may not be 

 erroneous, the doctrines originating with Rishabha, and continued by 

 Arhanta, dividing at periods of schism into more distinct classes, of which 

 the Jains or Srdwacs, as now established, form one, and the modern Bicd- 

 dhisls, as in Burma, Siam, Ceylon, Tibet, &c. another. 



Parswanat'ha I consider only as another form of Vishnu, in iiis distinct 

 character of preserver ; and the sequel will, I think, shew that the histories 

 of Buddha, son of Suddhodana, as well as of Salivahan, Gautama, &c. &c. 

 are, in a great measure, a jumble derived from the same source, with the 

 addition of foreign legends. May not the history of the modern Pars- 

 wanat'ha then, vnth the rest, be a newly devised tale founded on these 

 materials, with some particulars referring to a real devotee and reformer ? 

 The later sectarians appear to have merely given locality, name, and parent- 

 age, through the medium of saints or real existences, to original notions, 

 varying the minor details as facts or convenience might dictate.! 



above-mentioned to be representations of the chief events in the history of the images, in the 

 same manner that we see them inscribed in tlie mythological pieces in Kenera before alluded to. 

 By these the particular form of the god will be known. 



* Some say there were two PArswanAt'has, but I have learned no particulars to confirm 

 this assertion ; this may be the second. 



t Under these circumstances of change, we need not be surprised at finding difficulty in 

 recognizing the gods of Ellora, &c. 



% Parswanat'ha passed through ten mortal forms before he was finally translated to heaven, 

 and under each metamorphosis he found a foe. So Vishnu had his ten incarnations and Iiis 

 enemies. Buddha (but which Buddha we are left to imagine) had, according to Mr. Wartt, 

 the same number, and is sometimes surrounded by a hydra. 



INIajor 



