Mr. CoLESROOKE on Inscriptions at Tempks of the Jaina Sect. 521 



first, identifieil with Gautama swami, has no spiritual successors in the 

 Jaina sect. The proper inference seems to be, that the followers of this 

 surviving disciple are not of the sect of Ji7ia, rather than that there have 

 been none. Gautama's followers constitute the sect of Bauddha, with 

 tenets in many respects analogous to those of tlie Jaiiias, or followers of 

 Sudharma, but with a mythology or fabulous history of deified saints 

 quite different. Both have adopted the Hindu Pantheon, or assemblage of 

 subordinate deities ; both disclaim the authority of the vedas ; and both 

 elevate their pre-eminent saints to divine supremacy. 



In a short essay on their philosophical opinions, which will be likewise 

 submitted to the Society, it will be shown that a considerable difference 

 of doctrine subsists on various points ; but hardly more between the two 

 sects, than between the divers branches of the single sect of Bauddha. 



It deserves remark, that the Bauddhas and the Jainas agree in placing 

 within the limits of the same province, South Bihar, and its immediate 

 vicinity, the locality of the death and apotheosis of the last Buddha, as of 

 the last Jina, and of his predecessor and his eldest and favourite disciple. 

 Both religions have preserved for their sacred language the same dialect, the 

 Pali or Prdcrit, closely resembling the MdgadM or vernacular tongue of 

 Magadha (South Bihar). Between those dialects (^Pdli and Prdcrit') there is 

 but a shade of difference,* and they are often confounded under a single name. 



The traditional chronology of the two sects assigns nearly the same 

 period to their Gautama respectively : for, according to the Bauddhas, 

 the apotheosis of Gautama buddha took place 543 years before the begin- 

 ning of the Christian era; and according to the Jaiiias, the apotheosis 

 of Mahavira, Gautama swami's teacher, was somewhat earlier, viz. 

 about 600 years before the Christian era. The lapse of little more than 

 half a century is scarcely too great for the interval between the death of 

 a preceptor and of his pupil ; or not so much too great as to amount to 

 anachronism. 



Without relying much upon a similarity of name, it may yet not be foreign 

 to remark, that the Buddha, who preceded Gautama buddha, was Cas'yapa : 

 and that Mahavira, the preceptor of Gautama swamI, was of the race of 

 Casyapa. 



I take Pars' wanat'ha to have been the founder of the sect of Jainas, 

 which was confirmed and thoroughly established by Mahavira and his 



* Burnouf et Lassen, Essai sur Ic Pali, p. 154. 

 8 Y 2 



