Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 147

THE JAINS
107
They maintain that both the
their doctrines.
Trimurti and Buddhism are abominable modern inven-
tions, and mere travesties of the true and primitive
religion of India, which has remained pure and unimpaired
amongst them only. They also hold that they alone are
the real descendants of the old Brahmin Penitents, whose
doctrines, customs, and usages they protect from universal
degradation and from the monstrous innovations of Brah-
mins and Buddhists alike.
Brahminism underwent a hard struggle before it succeeded
in establishing its dominion in India, owing to the opposi-
tion offered to it by the Jains
but after a long and bloody
war the latter were crushed and had to submit to whatever
conditions the Brahmins chose to dictate.
The jealousy
and animosity which these religious wars stirred up still
prevail as strongly as ever, even after a lapse of two or
three thousand years.
Time, which generally softens the
strongest hatreds and brings together the greatest enemies,
has, in this case, failed to obliterate the traces of the
ancient wrongs of which each sect mutually accuses the
other.
The daily prayer of a certain sect of Brahmins
contains a curse levelled at the heads of the Jains, who
retaliate by exclaiming, when they rise to pray, 'Brahma
kshayam
May the Brahmin perish.' If either sect
comes into power, it takes the opportunity of humiliating
its adversaries and of punishing them without mercy when-
ever occasion offers.
But whatever may be the respective claims of Buddhists,
Brahmins, and Jains with regard to the antiquity of their
religions and the differences of doctrine that divide them,
it appears highly probable that they all sprang originally
from the same source. All three believe in the funda-
mental doctrine of metempsychosis. The images they
worship bear a great likeness to one another, and most of
these seem to be merely allegorical emblems invented to
help them to remember their original divinities. All their
religious establishments are alike composed of priests,
monks, and hermits. All their sacrifices, and the cere-
monies which accompany them, are nearly identical. And,
lastly, there is the resemblance of the languages used by
the priests in their religious services
that is to say, the
well as
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