I have dwelt so long on the subject of Mahavira's life in order to make the reader acquainted with facts which must decide the question whether the origin of Gainism was independent of Buddhism or not. Though most scholars do not go the length of denying that Mahavira and Buddha were different persons, yet some will not admit that this decides the question at issue. Professor Weber, in his learned treatise on the literature of the Gainas , says that he still regards 'the Gainas merely as one of the oldest sects of Buddhism. According to my opinion,' he writes, 'this is not precluded by the tradition about the origin of its founder having partly made use of another person than Buddha Sakyamuni; nay, even of one whose name is frequently mentioned in Buddhist legends as one of Buddha's contemporary opponents. This rather suggests to me that the Gainas intentionally disowned Buddha, being driven to this extremity by the animosity of sect. The number and importance of coincidences in the tradition of either sect regarding their founders is, on the whole, overwhelming.'

Professor Weber's last argument, the very one on which he seems to base his theory, has, according to my opinion, been fully refuted by our preceding inquiry. This theory, in itself, would require the strongest proof before we could admit it as even probable. Generally, heterodox sects claim to be the most authentic and correct interpreters of the words and

tenets of their founders. If a sect begins to recognise another authority than that of the original founder of the main church, it either adopts another faith already in existence, or starts a new one. In the first case the previous existence of the Gaina faith in some form or other has to be admitted; in the second we must suppose that the malcontent Buddhists searched in their scriptures for an opponent of Buddha, on whom they might foist their heretical theories, a course in which they were not followed by any other of the many sects of Buddhism. Now, granted for argument's sake, that they really did what they are charged with, they must have proceeded with the utmost dexterity, making use of, and slightly altering all occasional hints about the Niganthas and Nataputta which they were able to hunt up in their ancient scriptures, inventing new facts, and fabricating documents of their own, which to all, not in the secret, would seem just as trustworthy as those of their opponents. Indeed the Buddhistical and Gaina traditions about Mahavira, the circumstances in, and the people with whom he lived, so very well tally with, complete and correct each other that the most natural and plausible way to account for this fact, which our preceding inquiry has established, seems to be that both traditions are, in the main, independent of each other, and record what, at the time of their attaining a fixed form, was regarded as historical truth.