Besides these rules, which perfectly agree with one another, there are still two doctrines of the Nigaṇṭha to be referred to which seem to, or really do, contradict the Jainas; namely, it is stated that Nâtaputta demanded from his disciples the taking of four, not as in Vardhamâna's case, of five great vows. Although this difficulty may seem very important at first glance, it is, however, set aside by an oft repeated assertion in the Jaina works. They repeatedly say that Pàrśva, the twenty-third Jina only recognised four vows, and Vardhamâna added the fifth. The Buddhists have therefore handed down a dogma which Jainism recognises. The question is merely whether they or the Jainas are the more to be trusted. If the latter, and it is accepted that Vardhamâna was merely the reformer of an old religion, then the Buddhists must be taxed with an easily possible confusion between the earlier and later teachers. If, on the other hand, the Jaina accounts of their twenty-third prophet are regarded as mythical, and Vardhamâna is looked upon as the true founder of the sect,—then the doctrine of the four vows must be ascribed to the latter, and we must accept as a fact that he had changed his views on this point. In any case, however, the Buddhist statement speaks for, rather than against, the identity of Nigaṇṭha with Jina. [Footnote: Jacobi, _loc. cit._. p. 160, and Leumann, _Actes du Vlième Congrès Int. des Or_. Sect. Ary. p. 505. As the Jaina accounts of the teaching of Pârśva and the existence of communities of his disciples, sound trustworthy, we may perhaps accept, with Jacobi, that they rest on a historical foundation.] Vardhamâna's system, on the other hand, is quite irreconcilable with Nâtaputta's assertion that virtue as well as sin, happiness as well as unhappiness is unalterably fixed for men by fate, and nothing in their destiny can be altered by the carrying out of the holy law. It is, however, just as irreconcilable with the other Buddhist accounts of the teaching of their opponent; because it is absolutely unimaginable, that the same man, who lays vows upon his followers, the object of which is to avoid sin, could nevertheless make virtue and sin purely dependent upon the disposition of fate, and preach the uselessness of carrying out the law. The accusation that Nâtaputta embraced fatalism must therefore be regarded as an invention and an outcome of sect hatred as well as of the wish to throw discredit on their opponents. [Footnote: Jacobi _loc. cit._. p. 159-160.]