Wisdom Quarterly converts to Jainism (April 1)

Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly, April 1, 2022

We are told that this is actually Mahavira, the founder of Jainism (dailyissues3.com)

Vardhaman Mahavira and the Buddha in India

There was once a professor at UC Berkeley when I wanted to learn Pali, the ancient exclusively Buddhist language. He scoffed, "Why bother with that?"

"What do you suggest?" I asked. "Well Sanskrit, of course."

"Oh, you're from India," I countered. Then he suggested I follow that most ancient of languages with Chinese, Japanese, then maybe Prakrit to really study the "root" sources of the Dharma.

I continued my Pali studies, sticking to the historical Buddha and the back-to-basics Buddhist tradition that is Theravada or the "Teaching of the Enlightened Elder Disciples of the Buddha."

Here on an ornate Jain temple near a Buddhist stronghold in India, we find the Jina Mahavira.

In India, it's very hard to tell who's who, the Buddha or Mahavira (Nigantha Nataputta)

Virile Vardhamana Maha-vira or the "Great Hero" (hinduwebsite.com)

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In Pali we find a most amazing compendium of Buddhist knowledge and wisdom called the Path of Purification (Visuddhimagga). Well, who knew the Jains had one, too?

Jainism has a path to purification, too.

They don't. But Prof. Jaini wrote his thesis and had nothing else to do with it, so to get copies of it moving off the shelf, he named it The Jaina Path of Purification. Wow, what ego. But that's okay because Jainism teaches the ultimate existence of an eternal self, a "soul" or atman, and the "Great Hero" and ford-finder Mahavira, a contemporary of the Buddha.

• Buddhist "doctrine" or Dharma is unique in the universe for teaching that, ultimately speaking, all things are egoless or impersonal (anatman, "not-soul," "not-self").

Jain symbols (Wiki)

Their life stories are so similar, with Mahavira being a little older and a lot more ascetic and hardcore than Shakyamuni Buddha, that Western translators for a long time took them to be the same historical figure. Go figure.

Anyway, down with Buddhism. Wisdom Quarterly is going the way of finance, ahimsa, pure vegetarianism, and ascetic nudity, as the "sky-clad" school seems to be the more purist of the sects, unlike the softies who comprise the "white-clad" school.

Great things about Jainism:

It's the Jina's "Jainism"? (Wikipedia)

• Perhaps because Mahavira had a daughter, rather than a son, females are honored in this wandering ascetic (shramanic) tradition
• This is the first religion that allowed women to join and become monastics
• The highest ideal is non-harming (ahimsa) and, as such, the only suitably harmless line of work -- since farming entails harm to animals and insects -- and other forms of work are worse
• Everything is taken to the nth degree, even the belief that Mahavira didn't speak but vibrated and was intuitively understood by his disciples and others
• Jainism, like Buddhism, is the only other surviving wandering ascetic school that rejected the Vedas (Knowledge books claimed by later Hinduism) and the authority of Brahmin priests
• Asceticism leads to rebirth in the highest heaven where one exists forever and ever in a kind of suspended animation of bliss
• Karma is a thing, a tangible substance, finally cast off by expansion to the size of the universe
• The universe has a definite shape, kind of like the "thing" in Led Zeppelin's penultimate album Presence
• The swastika is recognized as an auspicious symbol, like in Buddhism and the other Dharmic religions

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  Jaina Path of Purification

  Mahavira was nice really nice, but Buddhism calls him the Nigantha Nataputta (which means something like the "Owner of nothing, son-of-Nata")
• Ascetics get to wear masks and sweep bugs out of the way with a horsetail whisk so as to not accidentally step on anything and do harm
• Total pacifists opposing war (unless it's being financed)
• Great architecture rivaling Buddhist stone monuments and megaliths
• Exquisite statues that look just like the Buddha, but naked
• As in Buddhism, early Brahmanism, and later Hinduism, the ultimate goal of existence is moksha ("liberation") from samsara ("the endless cycle of rebirth")
• Like Buddhism, suffering will end when ignorance ends
• The Jains in Buddhism: Niganthās (palikanon.com)

This is the Jina Mahavira (Nataputta)

(G. P. Malalasekera, Pali Proper Names) Buddhist books record (M.ii.243f.; D.iii.117, 210) that there was great dissension among the Jains (Niganthas) after the death of the founder of Jainism Mahavira (aka the Nigantha Nātaputta) at Pāvā in ancient proto-India.

The Commentaries state (DA.iii.906; MA.ii.831) that Nātaputta, realizing on his deathbed the folly and futility of his dharma (teaching), wished his followers to accept the Buddha's teaching instead.

Mahavira achieved something great under a tree

In order to bring this about, he taught his doctrine in two different ways to two different pupils, just before his death. To the one he said that his teaching was Nihilism (uccheda), and to the other that it was Eternalism (sassata) -- the two opposite wrong views in Buddhist perspective, both of which are incorrect.

As a result, they quarreled violently among themselves, and the Order broke up. More

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