Mahavira.

The meagre accounts of his life relate that he continued to travel for
nearly thirty years and had eleven principal disciples. He apparently
influenced much the same region as the Buddha and came in contact with
the same personalities, such as kings Bimbisara and Ajatasattu. He had
relations with Makkhali Gosala and his disciples disputed with the
Buddhists[266] but it does not appear that he himself ever met Gotama.
He died at the age of seventy-two at Pava near Rajagaha. Only one of his
principal disciples, Sudharman, survived him and a schism broke out
immediately after his death. There had already been one in the fifteenth
year of his teaching brought about by his son-in-law.

3

We have no information about the differences on which these schisms
turned, but Jainism is still split into two sects which, though
following in most respects identical doctrines and customs, refuse to
intermarry or eat together. Their sacred literature is not the same and
the evidence of inscriptions indicates that they were distinct at the
beginning of the Christian era and perhaps much earlier.

The Digambara sect, or those who are clothed in air, maintain that
absolute nudity is a necessary condition of saintship: the other
division or Svetambaras, those who are dressed in white, admit that
Mahavira went about naked, but hold that the use of clothes does not
impede the highest sanctity, and also that such sanctity can be attained
by women, which the Digambaras deny. Nudity as a part of asceticism was
practised by several sects in the time of Mahavira[267] but it was also
reprobated by others (including all Buddhists) who felt it to be
barbarous and unedifying. It is therefore probable that both Digambaras
and Svetambaras existed in the infancy of Jainism, and the latter may
represent the older sect reformed or exaggerated by Mahavira. Thus we
are told[268] that "the law taught by Vardhamana forbids clothes but
that of the great sage Parsva allows an under and an upper garment." But
it was not until considerably later that the schism was completed by the
constitution of two different canons[269]. At the present day most
Digambaras wear the ordinary costume of their district and only the
higher ascetics attempt to observe the rule of nudity. When they go
about they wrap themselves in a large cloth, but lay it aside when
eating. The Digambaras are divided into four principal sects and the
Svetambaras into no less than eigh