Even from this extremely crude and simplified statement, it will be evident that the priesthood had secured for themselves an unexampled supremacy, and, in the Midland at least, had placed the administrator and warrior in a state of marked inferiority. But in the surrounding territories, success in arms and government won men the consideration still considered their due among ourselves. In the Midland itself the territory was divided among a number of petty chiefs, who waged perpetual warfare with one another. They were not likely to ignore the prestige won by valour and warlike skill. One of them was Gautama, the Buddha (_c._ 596-508 B.C.). Another was Vardhamāna, his contemporary, the founder of Jainism. This is not the place to tell of Buddhism, which, as a recognised creed, though it has spread far to the north and east, and is the religion of Ceylon and Burma, only survives in India proper in faint influences on the belief and practice of various Hindu sects. (4) _Jainism._ The Jain Reform still exists and numbers over a million of followers. Its doctrines have a vague and general resemblance to those of Buddhism, not because either copied the other, but because they sprang from a common origin. In both Nirvāna, the "blowing out," as it were, of the lamp of life is the goal aimed at. But to the Buddhist, Nirvāna means the peace of extinction; to the Jain, it is final escape from the body after various metamorphoses. Mr Crooke defines the fivefold vow of the Jains as prescribing (1) the sanctity of human life; (2) renunciation of lying, which proceeds from anger, greed, fear or mirth; (3) refusal to take things not given; (4) chastity; (5) renunciation of worldly attachments. The Jain pantheon consists of deified saints who are either Tīrthan-kara, "making a passage through the circuit of life," or Jina, "the victorious ones."