looked up jainism; cant even kill a vegetable to eat it... how do they survive?

Several years ago, an associate from India and I discussed the similarities/differences of Buddhism and Jainism, the latter of which I was completely unfamiliar with. She was under the impression that all Buddist doctrine (dhamma) was derived from the more ancient Jainism beliefs.

Has anyone heard of this link? Was the Lord Buddha from a Jainist family?

 

Most scholars are of the view that Buddhism and Jainism originated pretty much contemporaneously in North India. Lord Buddha and Mahavira appear to have been contemporaries but evidently never met. However some of the Buddha's most senior disciples 'defected' from the Jain movement and to me Siddhartha's ascetic practices immediately prior to his enlightenment seem identical to the Jain path so he may have been exploring this as one of the extremes to be avoided.

I stayed with the Jain priest of the temple by the stupa at Kushinagar, the site of the Buddha's parinirvana, or passing. He and his family are wonderful people and so pleased to meet any Buddhist pilgrim who expresses an interest in Jainism. They are of the 'skyclad' sect - i.e. the monks go naked (apart from the little mask over the mouth to avoid accidentally swallowing insects), although the family are non-monastic custodians of the shrine. The monks eat windfall fruits thus avoiding killing even vegetable matter. They pull out their hair by the roots rather than cut it and wrap the hair around their thighs to enable the fleas to survive. They carry a little broom to sweep insects out of the way as they walk and never use any transport as wheels would crush living beings. Needless to say only a small minority of Jains become full ascetics - a much smaller proportion than Buddhists who become monks, but they've survived 2500 years and are doing fine.

There is a lot of common ground between Buddhist and Jain beliefs - the 5 precepts are common to both but the Jains interpret them more strictly. A key difference is over the understanding of karma. For Jains karma is generated by the ACT, for Buddhists it is the INTENTION behind the act, thus accidental killing of a being is understood differently by the two paths.

Rod - Devadatta did try to cause a schism in the Sangha by convincing some junior monks that the Buddha's path was too 'slack', especially concerning diet. He wanted the Buddha to advocate strict vegetarianism. This would certainly put Devadatta closer to the Jain path but the sources don't (AFAIK) suggest that he was actually Jain. There was at the time a very rich panoply of similar renunciate movements in India at the time, many of which evolved into Upanishadic Hinduism, many died out and Jainism and Buddhism evolved into what we know today.

They are of the 'skyclad' sect - i.e. the monks go naked (apart from the little mask over the mouth to avoid accidentally swallowing insects), although the family are non-monastic custodians of the shrine.

The sect you mentioned is the Digambhara sect and today only practising monks have survived this purest form of Jainism (probably because laypersons would find it extremely akward (and difficult) to go about their daily life without clothes or other articles of daily use).

By the way, the holiest Jain shrine is at Palitana in Western India (see here) and quite far from the original Buddhist shrines.

I believe the Tibetians say that The Mahavira converted to Buddhism along with many of his other followers in later life. I believe they also say that he attained enlightenment within that life and became a Buddha himself.

In some of the Vajrayana scriptures he is mentioned or someone who is his namesake is mentioned.

I doubt if this is the Jainist line but it may well be true as the practise of debate between important religious leaders was known in those days. The losers converted to the winners order along with their desciples. Maybe we could resurect this practise on Thai visa

For Jains karma is generated by the ACT, for Buddhists it is the INTENTION behind the act, thus accidental killing of a being is understood differently by the two paths.

When I did Buddhist Studies at university, my academic advisor for the program, and my professor for several of the Buddhism courses, was Dr Padmanabh Jaini, a practicing Jain layperson with a deep admiration for Buddhism. I read a few books on Jainism back then, and Dr Jaini taught a grad seminar that compared all of the 6th century BC sramana movements, including Buddhism and Jainism. Yes, they were contemporaries, or at least came about during the same century.

Uniquely among all the Hindu-Buddhist sects, the Jains believe that karma is a physical substance, invisible to the eye, that accumulates and adheres to one's soul. When moksha/liberation is achieved, your soul shoots to the top of the universe -- which in Jain cosmology is vaguely beaker-shaped as a I recall -- like a cork released from a trap.

As Dr Jaini compared and contrasted the Jain and Buddhist philosophies, he would very wistfully admit that he much preferred the Buddhist interpretation of reality for its appeal to rational thinking.

Aside: Jainis run some of the more successful businesses in India.