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History of Jainism revealed in Pāli Literature

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dc.contributor.author Liyanage, B.G.
dc.date.accessioned 2016-02-03T05:01:35Z
dc.date.available 2016-02-03T05:01:35Z
dc.date.issued 2015
dc.identifier.citation Liyanage, Bertram G. 2015. History of Jainism revealed in Pāli Literature. 3rd Biennial Conference of the International Association for Asian Heritage, 27th - 28th December 2015, Centre for Asian Studies, University of Kelaniya & International Association for Asian Heritage (IAAH). p. 32. en_US
dc.identifier.isbn 978-955-4563-62-9
dc.identifier.uri http://repository.kln.ac.lk/handle/123456789/11557
dc.description.abstract The word nigaṇṭha frequently occurs in both early Buddhist scriptures and later commentaries composed in Pāli. Since this word has been construed as the Pāli form of Sanskrit word nirgrantha, it directly refers to Jainism, one of the prominent religious movements prevailed at the time of the Buddha and alive even today. This comparison goes further identifying Mahāvīra, 24th Tīrthaṅkara in Jainism, with Nigaṇṭhanāthaputta in Pāli scriptures. Moreover Mahāvīra is said to be an elder contemporary to the Buddha, a fact that is supported by some literary evidence. This picture becomes a little complicated with some chronicle records about practicing Jainism in Sri Lanka before the formal advent of Buddhism in 3rd century BCE. This paper attempts to bring to the foreground many issues related to this historical picture of nigaṇṭha in Pāli Buddhist literature and argues that Nigaṇṭhanāthaputta in Pāli scriptures is not Mahāvīra, but he may be Pārśva. Then Jainism found in ancient Sri Lanka would be his Order. It further invites serious readers to reconsider the date of the Buddha as well. Most of the sustainable arguments are based on Pāli canonical scriptures, commentaries and rarely on some other literary record pertaining to the history of Buddhism and the history of Sri Lanka. en_US
dc.language.iso en en_US
dc.publisher Centre for Asian Studies, University of Kelaniya en_US
dc.subject Jainism en_US
dc.subject Pārśva en_US
dc.subject Mahāvīra en_US
dc.subject nigaṇṭha en_US
dc.subject Pāli literature Peliyagoda Vidyalankara en_US
dc.title History of Jainism revealed in Pāli Literature en_US
dc.type Article en_US


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