A.D.  These works are not written in Sanskrit, but in a popular Prakrit dialect:  for the Jina, like Buddha, used the language of the people when teaching.  They contain partly legends about the prophet and his activity as a teacher, partly fragments of a doctrine or attempts at systematic representations of the same.  Though the dialect is different they present, in the form of the tales and in the manner of expression, a wonderful resemblance to the sacred writings of the Buddhists. [Footnote:  A complete review of the A[.n]ga and the canonical works which were joined to it later, is to be found in A. Weber’s fundamental treatise on the sacred writings of the Jainas in the Indische Studien, Bd.  XVI, SS. 211-479 and Bd.  XVIII, SS. 1-90.  The Achara[.n]ga and the Kalpasutra are translated by H. Jacobi in the S.B.E Vol.  XXII, and a part of the Upasakadasa Sutra by R. Hoernle in the Bibl.  Ind. In the estimates of the age of the A[.n]ga I follow H. Jacobi, who has throughly discussed the question S.B.E. Vol.  XXII, pp. xxxix-xlvii.] The Digambaras, on the other hand, have preserved nothing of the A[.n]ga but the names.  They put in their place later systematic works, also in Prakrit, and assert, in vindication of their different teaching, that the canon of their rivals is corrupted.  In the further course of history, however, both branches of the Jainas have, like the Buddhists, in their continual battles with the Brahma[n.]s, found it necessary to make themselves acquainted with the ancient language of the culture of the latter.  First the Digambara and later the [’S]vetambara began to use Sanskrit.  They did not rest content with explaining their own teaching in Sanskrit works:  they turned also to the secular sciences of the Brahma[n.]s.  They have accomplished so much of importance, in grammar, in astronomy, as well as in some branches of letters, that they have won respect even from their enemies, and some of their works are still of importance to European science.  In southern India, where they worked among the Dravi[d.]ian tribes, they also advanced the development of these languages.  The Kanarese literary language and the Tamil and Telugu rest on the foundations laid by the Jaina monks.  This activity led them, indeed, far from their proper goal, but it created for them an important position in the history of literature and culture.

The resemblance between the Jainas and the Buddhists, which I have had so often cause to bring forward, suggests the question, whether they are to be regarded as a branch of the latter, or whether they resemble the Buddhists merely because, as their tradition asserts, [Footnote:  The later tradition of the Jainas gives for the death of their prophet the dates 545, 527 and 467 B.C. (see Jacobi, Kalpasutra introd. pp. vii—­ix and xxx).  None of the sources in which these announcements appear are older than the twelfth century A.D.  The latest is found in