than eight million
years and was five hundred bow-lengths in height. Monks and laymen now
appear at large in India, a division which originated neither with
Jain nor Buddhist,[9] though these orders are more clearly divided
among the heretics, from whom, again, was borrowed by the Hindu sects,
the monastic institution, in the ninth century (A.D.), in all the
older heretical completeness. Although atheistic the Jain worshipped
the Teacher, and paid some regard to the Brahmanical divinities, just
as he worships the Hindu gods to-day, for the atheistical systems
admitted gods as demi-gods or dummy gods, and in point of fact became
very superstitious. Yet are both founder-worship and superstition
rather the growth of later generations than the original practice. The
atheism of the Jain means denial of a divine creative Spirit.[10]

Though at times in conflict with the Brahmans the Jains never departed
from India as did the Buddhists, and even Brahmanic priests in some
parts of India serve today in Jain temples.

In metaphysics as in religion the Jain differs radically from the
Buddhist. He believes in a dualism not unlike that of the S[=a]nkhyas,
whereas Buddhistic philosophy has no close connection with this
Brahmanic system. To the Jain eternal matter stands opposed to eternal
spirits, for (opposed to pantheism) every material entity (even water)
has its own individual spirit. The Jain's Nirv[=a]na, as Barth has
said, is escape from the body, not escape from existence.[11] Like the
Buddhist the Jain believes in reincarnation, eight births, after one
has started on the right road, being necessary to the completion of
perfection. Both sects, with the Brahmans, insist on the non-injury
doctrine, but in this regard the Jain exceeds his Brahmanical
teacher's practice. Both heretical sects claim that their reputed
founders were the last of twenty-four or twenty-five prophets who
preceded the real founder, each successively having become less
monstrous (more human) in form.

The Jain literature left to us is quite large[12] and enough has been
published already to make it necessary to revise the old belief in
regard to the relation between Jainism and Buddhism.

We have said that Jainism stands nearer to Brahmanism (with which,
however, it frequently had quarrels) than does Buddhism.[13] The most
striking outward sign of this is the weight laid on asceticism, which
is common to Brahmanism and Jainism but is repudiated by Bu