Activities per year
Abstract / Description of output
Like Buddhist traditions, Jain traditions preserve many stories about people’s past lives. Unlike Buddhist traditions, relatively few of these stories narrate the past lives of the tradition’s central figure, the jina. In Jainism there is no equivalent path to the bodhisatt(v)a path; the karma that guarantees jinahood is bound a mere two births before that attainment, and the person who attracts that karma cannot do so willfully, nor is he aware of it being bound. There is therefore no Jain equivalent to the ubiquitous jātaka literature. In this paper I will explore what the absence of a jātaka genre in Jain traditions tells us about the genre’s role in Buddhism. Focusing upon the multi-life stories of Gautama Buddha and Vardhamāna Mahāvīra, I will ask how these two strikingly similar narratives betray some fundamental differences between Buddhist and Jain understandings of the ultimate religious goal and the method of its attainment.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 5-16 |
Number of pages | 12 |
Journal | Buddhist Studies Review |
Volume | 29 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2012 |
Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)
- Buddha
- Buddhism
- Mahāvīra
- Jainism
- biography
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Dive into the research topics of ''The Multi-life Stories of Gautama Buddha and Vardhamana Mahavira''. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Activities
- 1 Participation in conference
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Congress of the International Association of Buddhist Studies
Naomi Appleton (Participant)
21 Jun 2011Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in conference