standpoint. The latter do not trust the
Jaina tradition and believe it probable that the statements in the same
are falsified. There are certainly great difficulties in the way of
accepting such a position especially the improbability that the Buddhists
should have forgotten the fact of the defection of their hated enemy.
Meanwhile, this is not absolutely impossible as the oldest preserved Jaina
canon had its first authentic edition only in the fifth or sixth century
of our era, and as yet the proof is wanting that the Jainas, in ancient
times, possessed a fixed tradition. The belief that I am able to insert
this missing link in the chain of argument and the hope of removing the
doubts of my two honoured friends has caused me to attempt a connected
statement of the whole question although this necessitates the repetition
of much that has already been said, and is in the first part almost
entirely a recapitulation of the results of Jacobi's researches.]

The oldest canonical books of the Jaina, apart from some mythological
additions and evident exaggerations, contain the following important notes
on the life of their last prophet. [Footnote: The statement that
Vardhamana's father was a mighty king belongs to the manifest
exaggerations. This assertion is refuted by other statements of the Jainas
themselves. See Jacobi, _S.B.E._ Vol. XXII, pp. xi-xii.] Vardhamana
was the younger son of Siddhartha a nobleman who belonged to the Kshatriya
race, called in Sanskrit Jnati or Jnata, in Prakrit Naya, and, according
to the old custom of the Indian warrior caste, bore the name of a
Brahmanic family the Ka['s]yapa. His mother, who was called Tri['s]ala,
belonged to the family of the governors of Videha. Siddhartha's residence
was Ku[n.][d.]apura, the Basukund of to-day, a suburb of the wealthy town
of Vai['s]ali, the modern Besarh, in Videha or Tirhut. [Footnote: Dr.
Buehler by a slip had here "Magadha oder Bihar".--J. B.] Siddhartha was
son-in-law to the king of Vai['s]ali. Thirty years, it seems, Vardhamana
led a worldly life in his parents' house. He married, and his wife
Ya['s]oda bore him a daughter Anojja, who was married to a noble of the
name of Jamali, and in her turn had a daughter. In his thirty-first year
his parents died. As they were followers of Par['s]va the twenty-third
Jina, they chose, according to the custom of the Jainas, the death of the
wise by starvation. Immediately after this Vardhamana determined to
renounc