240 SKETCH OF THE 



Previously, however, to entering upon these subjects, it may be 

 advisable to advert briefly to what has been already done towards their 

 elucidation, and to the materials which exist in the original languages for 

 a complete view. The latter are of the most extensive description, whilst 

 the labours of European writers are by no means wanting to an accurate 

 estimate of the leading doctrines of the Jain faith, or to an appreciation 

 of the state in which it exists in various parts of Hindustan. 



The first authentic notices of the Jains occur in the ninth volume of the 

 Asiatic Researches, from the pens of the late Colonel Mackenzie, Dr. 

 Buchanan, and Mr. Colebrooke. The two first described the Jains from 

 personal acquaintance, and from their accounts, it appeared, that they 

 existed, in considerable numbers and respectability, in Southern India, 

 particularly in Mysore, and on the Canara Coast; that they laid claim to 

 high antiquity, and enumerated a long series of religious teachers, and 

 that they differed in many of their tenets and practices from the orthodox 

 Hindus, by whom they were regarded with aversion and contempt. A 

 further illustration of their doctrines, and a particular account of their 

 deified teachers, was derived by Mr. Colebrooke from some of their 

 standard authorities, then first made known to Europeans. 



Little more was published on the subject of the Jains until very 

 lately, with exception of numerous but brief and scattered notices of the 

 sect in the Peninsula, in Buchanan's Travels in Mysore. Some account 

 of them also occurs in Colonel Wilks' Historical Sketch of the South of 

 India, and in the work of the Abbe Du Bois. Mr. Ward has an article 

 dedicated to the Jains, in his account of the Hindus; and Mr. Ekskine 

 has briefly adverted to some of their peculiarities in his Observations on 

 the Cave of Eiephahta, and the remains of the Banddhas in India, in 

 the Proceedings of the Bombay Literary Society. It is, however, to the 



