Page:History of India Vol 1.djvu/389

Rh Like the Buddhists, the Jains have their monastic order, and they refrain from killing animals, and praise retirement from the world. In some respects they go even further than the Buddhists, and maintain that not only animals and plants, but the smallest particles of



the elements, fire, air, earth, and water, are endowed with life. For the rest, the Jains, like the Buddhists, reject the Veda, they accept the tenets of karma and of nirvana, and believe in the transmigration of souls. They also believe in twenty-five Tirthakaras, or Jinas, as the early Buddhists believed in twenty-four Buddhas who had risen before Gautama Buddha. The sacred