DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.2371#0507
485
BOOK IV.
THE JAINA CAVE-TEMPLES.
CHAPTER I.
THE JAINS AND JINAS.
The third sect that excavated cave-temples were the Jains, who
have many points of belief and ceremonial in common with the
Buddhists. Like them the Jains are atheists, believing in no
supreme moral ruler, but in the attainment of moksha or nirvana as the
result of a long continued course of moral and ceremonial obser-
vances in a succession of lives. As their name implies, they are
followers of the Jinas, or " vanquishers" of vice and virtue—men
whom they believe to have obtained nirvana or emancipation from
the power of transmigration. They reject the details of Buddhist
cosmogony, but have framed a system of their own, if possible more
formal. They believe that the world is destroyed and renewed after
vast cycles of time, and that in each of these asons or renovations
there appear twenty-four Jinas or Tirthahkaras at different periods,
™q practise asceticism and attain nirvana. Besides the Tirthankaras
ot the present (avasarpini) cycle, they name those also of both the
preceding and the coming cycles.1 Rishabha, the first Jina of the
"esent cycle, is pretended to have been of immense stature, to have
ee& 2,000,000 great years of age when he became Chakravartti
Jr universal emperor, to have ruled 6,300,000 great years, and then
5^ practised austerity for 100,000 years before attaining nirvana
tV T?Unt ^tounjaya in Gujarat, shortly before the end of the
,age of the present great cycle. At an immense distance of
^J^AJitanatha, the second Jina, appeared, was not quite so tall,
P 34QemtCllandra' Abhid&na Chintdmani, &L 58-70; Briggs, Cities of Gujarashtra
' Ind- Ant., vol. ii. p. HO.
BOOK IV.
THE JAINA CAVE-TEMPLES.
CHAPTER I.
THE JAINS AND JINAS.
The third sect that excavated cave-temples were the Jains, who
have many points of belief and ceremonial in common with the
Buddhists. Like them the Jains are atheists, believing in no
supreme moral ruler, but in the attainment of moksha or nirvana as the
result of a long continued course of moral and ceremonial obser-
vances in a succession of lives. As their name implies, they are
followers of the Jinas, or " vanquishers" of vice and virtue—men
whom they believe to have obtained nirvana or emancipation from
the power of transmigration. They reject the details of Buddhist
cosmogony, but have framed a system of their own, if possible more
formal. They believe that the world is destroyed and renewed after
vast cycles of time, and that in each of these asons or renovations
there appear twenty-four Jinas or Tirthahkaras at different periods,
™q practise asceticism and attain nirvana. Besides the Tirthankaras
ot the present (avasarpini) cycle, they name those also of both the
preceding and the coming cycles.1 Rishabha, the first Jina of the
"esent cycle, is pretended to have been of immense stature, to have
ee& 2,000,000 great years of age when he became Chakravartti
Jr universal emperor, to have ruled 6,300,000 great years, and then
5^ practised austerity for 100,000 years before attaining nirvana
tV T?Unt ^tounjaya in Gujarat, shortly before the end of the
,age of the present great cycle. At an immense distance of
^J^AJitanatha, the second Jina, appeared, was not quite so tall,
P 34QemtCllandra' Abhid&na Chintdmani, &L 58-70; Briggs, Cities of Gujarashtra
' Ind- Ant., vol. ii. p. HO.