A Popular Dictionary of Buddhism
A member of one of the many religions of India. So called after the first of its Tirthankaras, ‘ford-makers’, called Mahāvīra, the Jaina or Jina, Conqueror, a title also applied to the Buddha. The twenty-fourth in the line, Vardhamāna Mahāvīra (619–546 B.C.) was an elder contemporary of the Buddha.
The Jains were known to the early Bsts. as Nirgranthas, ‘without knots’, and their variant teaching on the doctrine of Karma, Kiriyavāda, was freely discussed. See E.J.Thomas, History of Buddhist Thought, Chap. IX. They stress Ahimsā, harmlessness or non-violence, to an extreme degree.
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