Narrating Conversion: Some Reflections on Buddhist and Jain Stories

Both Buddhism and Jainism from their inception were missionary religions, engaged in spreading their faith through conversions. Unlike the Jains, the Buddhists developed a master-narrative in which, at a council of learned monks, it was agreed to dispatch some of their members to every corner of the world to convert the inhabitants to Buddhism. Read carefully, the accounts of the success of these ventures preserved in the Pali sources raise questions with surprisingly far-reaching implications. Through a comparison with Jain stories, this article highlights the distinctiveness of Buddhist conversion stories and puzzles over their unusual attitudes towards preaching, authoritative texts, and the lay community.