In Brāhmanism, Buddhism, and Jainism, the idea seems to be that the tendency to deterioration would very soon land mankind in a condition of hopeless degeneracy unless counteracted by the remedial influences of great teachers, prophets, and deliverers. In the legendary history of the Buddha Gautama, he is described in terms which almost assimilate his character to the Christian conception of a Redeemer: he is even reported to have said—"Let all the evils (or sins) flowing from the corruption of the fourth or degenerate age (called Kali) fall upon me, but let the world be redeemed."
And what are the precise character and functions of a Jina? This inquiry must, of course, form an important part of our present subject, and the reply is really involved in the answer to another question: What is the great end and object of Jainism? Briefly, it may be stated that Jainism, like Brāhmanism and Buddhism, aims at getting rid of the burden of repeated existences. Three root-ideas may be said to lie at the foundation of all three systems:—first, that personal existence is protracted through an innumerable succession of bodies by the almighty power of man's own acts; secondly, that mundane life is an evil, and that man finds his perfection in the cessation of all acts, and the consequent extinction of all personal existence; thirdly, that such perfection is alone attained through self-mortification, abstract meditation, and true knowledge. In these crucial doctrines, the theory of Brāhmanism is superior to that of Buddhism and Jainism. According to the Brāhmans, the living soul of man has an eternal existence both retrospectively and prospectively, and only exists separately from the One Supreme Eternal Soul because that Supreme Soul wills the temporary separate personality of countless individual spirits, dissevering them from his own essence and causing them to pass through a succession of bodies, till, after a long course of discipline, they are permitted to blend once more with their great Eternal Source. With the Brāhmans existence in the abstract is not an evil. It is only an evil when it involves the continued separation of the personal soul from the impersonal Eternal Soul of the Universe.
Very different is the doctrine of Buddhists and Jains. With them there is no Supreme Being, no Supreme Divine Eternal Soul, no separate human eternal soul. Nor can there be any true soul-transmigration. A Buddhist and a Jaina believe that the only eternal thing is matter. The universe consists of eternal atoms which by their own inherent creative force are perpetually developing countless forms of being in ever-recurring cycles of creation and dissolution, re-creation and re-dissolution. This is symbolized by a wheel revolving for ever in perpetual progression and retrogression.[8]
What then becomes of the doctrine of transmigration of souls, which is said to be held even more strongly by Buddhists and Jains than by Hindūs? It is thus explained. Every human being is composed of certain constituents (called by Buddhists the five Skandhas). These comprehend body, soul, and mind, with all the organs of feeling and sensation. They are all dissolved at death, and absolute extinction would follow, were it not for the inextinguishable, imperishable, omnipotent force of Karman or Act. No sooner are the constituents of one stage of existence dissolved than a new set is created by the force of acts done and character formed in the previous stage. Soul-transmigration with Buddhists is simply a concatenation of separate existences connected by the iron chain of act. A man's own acts generate a force which may be compared to those of chemistry, magnetism, or electricity—a force which periodically re-creates the whole man, and perpetuates his personal identity (notwithstanding the loss of memory) through the whole series of his separate existences, whether it obliges him to ascend or descend in the scale of being. It may safely be affirmed that Brāhmans, Buddhists, and Jains all agree in repudiating the idea of vicarious suffering. All concur in rejecting the notion of a representative man—whether he be a Manu, a Rishi, a Buddha, or a Jina—suffering as a substituted victim for the rest of mankind. Every being brought into the world must suffer in his own person the consequences of his own deeds committed either in present or former states of being. It is not sufficient that he be rewarded in a temporary heaven, or punished in a temporary hell. Neither heaven nor hell has power to extinguish the accumulated efficacy of good or bad acts committed by the same person during a long succession of existences. Such accumulated acts must inevitably and irresistibly drag him down into other mundane forms, until at length their potency is destroyed by his attainment of perfect self-discipline and self-knowledge in some final culminating condition of being, terminated by complete self-annihilation.
And thus we are brought to a clear understanding of the true character of a Jina or self-conquering Saint (from the Sanskrit root ji, to conquer). A Jina is with the Jains very nearly what a Buddha is with the Buddhists.
He represents the perfection of humanity, the typical man, who has conquered self and attained a condition so perfect that he not only ceases to act, but is able to extinguish the power of former acts; a human being who is released from the obligation of further transmigration, and looks forward to death as the absolute extinction of personal existence. But he is also more than this. He is a being who by virtue of the perfection of his self-mortification (tapas) has acquired the perfection of knowledge, and therefore the right to be a supreme leader and teacher of mankind. He claims far more complete authority and infallibility than the most arrogant Roman Pontiff. He is in his own solitary person an absolutely independent and infallible guide to salvation. Hence he is commonly called a Tīrthan-kara, or one who constitutes a Tīrtha[9]—that is to say, a kind of passage or medium through which bliss may be attained—a kind of ford or bridge leading over the river of life to the elysium of final emancipation. Other names for him are Arhat, "venerable;" Sarva-jna, "omniscient;" Bhagavat, "lord."
A Buddha with the Buddhists is a very similar personage. He is a self-conqueror and self-mortifier (tapasvī), like the Jina, and is besides a supreme guide to salvation; but he has achieved his position of Buddhahood more by the perfection of his meditation (yoga, samādhi) than by the completeness of his self-restraint and austerities.
Both Jainas and Buddhists—but especially Jainas—believe in the existence of gods and demons, and spiritual beings of all kinds, whom they often designate by names similar to those used by the Hindūs. These may possess vast supernatural and extra-mundane powers in different degrees and kinds, which they are capable of exerting for the benefit or injury of mankind; but they are inferior in position to the Jina or Buddha. They are merely powerful beings—temporary rulers in temporary heavens and hells.
They may be very formidable and worthy of propitiation, but they are imperfect. They are liable to pass through other stages of existence, or even to be born again in mundane forms, until they are finally extinguished by the same law of dissolution as the rest of the universe.
Very different is the condition of the perfect saint. He is in a far higher position, for he has but one step to take before plunging into the ocean of non-existence. He is on the verge of the bliss of extinction, and can guide others to it. He can never be dragged down again to earthly imperfection and sin. He alone is a worthy object of adoration. All other beings—divine and demoniacal—are to be dreaded, not worshipped. "There is no god superior to the Arhat," says the Kalpa-sūtra (Stevenson, p. 10). True worship, indeed, is not possible with Jainas any more than with Buddhists. They have no supreme Eternal Being, omniscient and omnipresent, ever at hand to answer prayer, ever living to be an object of meditation, devotion, and love to his creatures.