ut it can no
longer be declared to be the result of a later intentional
misrepresentation, made in order to conceal the dependence of Jainism on
Buddhism. It is no longer possible to dispute its authenticity with regard
to those points which are confirmed by independent statements of other
sects, and to assert, for example, that the Jaina account of the life of
Vardhamana, which agrees with the statements of the Buddists, proves
nothing as regards the age of Jainism because in the late fixing of the
canon of the ['S]vetambaras in the sixth century after Christ it may have
been drawn from Buddhist works. Such an assertion which, under all
circumstances, is a bold one, becomes entirely untenable when it is found
that the tradition in question states correctly facts which lie not quite
three centuries distant from Vardhamana's time, and that the sect, long
before the first century of our era kept strict account of their internal
affairs. [Footnote: See Weber's and Barth's opinions quoted above in note
I, p. 23.]

Unfortunately the testimony to the ancient history of the Jainas, so far
as made known by means of inscriptions, terminates here. Interesting as it
would be to follow the traces of their communities in the later
inscriptions, which become so numerous from the fifth century A.D. onwards
and in the description of his travels by Hiuen Tsiang, who found them
spread through the whole of India and even beyond its boundaries, it would
be apart from our purpose. The documents quoted suffice, however, to
confirm the assertion that during the first five centuries after Buddha's
death both the statements of Buddhist tradition and real historical
sources give evidence to the existence of the Jainas as an important
religious community independent of Buddhism, and that there are among the
historical sources some which entirely clear away the suspicion that the
tradition of the Jainas themselves is intentionally falsified.

The advantage gained for Indian history from the conclusion that Jainism
and Buddhism are two contemporary sects--having arisen in the same
district,--is no small one. First, this conclusion shows that the
religious movement of the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. in eastern India
must have been a profound one. If not only one, but certainly two, and
perhaps more reformers, appeared at the same time, preaching teachers, who
opposed the existing circumstances in the same manner, and each of whom
gained no small