Description of Module Items Description of Module Subject

Description of Module Items Description of Module Subject Name Social Work Paper Name History and Philosophy of Social Work Paper Coordinator Dr. Ruchi Sinha Content Writer/Author Dr. Pekham Basu (CW) Content Reviewer Prof Manish Jha Indian Ideologies in the Ancient Period- Vedic Module Name/Title Religions, Jainism and Buddhism Module Id 7 1. To understand and familiarise students to Ancient India 2. To contextualise Vedic religion 3. To comprehend the emergence of Jainism and Objectives Buddhism 4. To understand the linkages of religion with the basic tenets of social work Ancient India, Vedic Religions, Emergence of Jainism Key words and Buddhism Introduction Ancient India covers a vast swathe of time and runs across various ages, beginning with the prehistoric era of the Stone Age. Various literary and archaeological evidences have been pieced together in an attempt to give a definitive account of ancient India. D.D. Kosambi, an authority on ancient Indian history, while writing on ancient India, came across the problem of absence of records, especially of the Kings, dynasties, and their chronicles. This posed a problem, because most often historians depend on those evidences to chronicle the past. Kosambi thus said, “History is the presentation in chronological order of successive changes in the means and relations of production. This definition has the advantage that history can be written as distinct from a series of historical episodes. Culture must then be understood also in the sense of the ethnographer, to describe the essential ways of life of the whole people”. Archaeological evidences from ancient India dug out many cultures that Dandekar, writing on the Historiography of ancient India, mentions, “brought to light a variety of 1 cultures, such as the pre-Harappan. Harappan, and post-Harappan cultures, the Banas culture, the chalcolithic cultures of Narmada and Central India, the ochre colour pottery culture of the upper Gangã-valley, the copper hoard culture, the painted grey ware culture, and the northern black polished ware culture.” Since this module is on Vedic Religions, Jainism and Buddhism, we will concentrate only on the religious aspects of ancient Indian history. Vedic Religion Much of Vedic religion is attributed to the Aryans, who came to India just after the Indus Valley Civilization. Vedic Religion is understood from Vedic literature, or the 'Veda'. This was not a written document, but was compiled over the years, an oral tradition that was handed down from one genration to the next. Vedic Literature consists of three major literary genres, namely, the Samhitãs, the Brãhmanas (which would also include the Äranyakas), and the Upanisads, and the four Vedas, namely, Rigveda, the Yajurveda, the Sãmaveda, and the Atharvaveda. The Vedic Period is divided into two periods – early Vedic period, tentatively between 1500 and 1000 BC, and later Vedic period. Rig Veda is dominated by nature worhsip like Indra, the God of thunder, Agni, god of fire, Surya, the sun god, Varuna, god of water, and so on. Max Muller, a noted German scholar sees this as a form of nature worhsip. Kosmabi says, that “the Persians and Medes had an Aryan speech close to Sanskrit. About 1400 B.C., Mitannian records show that people worshipping Indo-Aryan gods in an Aryan language were settled near Lake Urmiyeh in Iran. The same gods Indra, Varuna, Mitra, etc., were worshipped by Persians till Zoroaster swept them away in the late sixth century B.C. Only the Indo-Aryan god of fire (Agni) remained in common worship for both. The Sanskrit word deva for 'god' became the Iranian term for 'demon’.” Kosambi further states that the Rigveda made no reference to fixed settlements like the earlier period of the Indus Valley Civilization. Neither was there any reference to reading, writing, art, and architecture. “Music was restricted to chants for ritual. Technology amounted mostly to the construction of chariots, tools, and weapons of war; it belonged primarily to the god Tvashtri and his followers, both seemingly of Indus origin”. In the Rig vedic period, there was no caste or class differentiation 2 within the tribe at this stage, and there was mobility among castes which were purely based on profession. So the son of a priest could become a carpenter if he mastered carpentry, and if a cobbler’s son gained religious knowledge, he could become a priest. The later Vedic period is between 1000 and 600 BC and shows a considerable advance in material culture, and there is a geographical shift to the Ganga valley, giving an indication that the society was not nomadic, or pastoral as earlier, but was developing into an agrarian society with subsistence economy. The development of iron, which aided the formation of tools, also led to urbanization. However, the most significant development was the consolidation of the Varna or the caste system leading to its rigidity and emergence of the Brahmanas as a dominant caste group. The Vedic poet-priests also undertook to collect together all the scattered old and new mantras, group them into süktas or hymns - the Rigveda-Samhitã or the collection of the suktas relating to the religion of the classes and the Atharvaveda-Samhitã or the collection of the suktas relating to the religion of the masses for the sake of convenience. This division may have had an impact in paving the way for Jainism and Buddhism, but one is not sure. Samhitã- period, was marked by growing stability and prosperity in social, political and economic spheres. This social security and leisure time, allowed people to elaborate their existing simple religion – making it a complex religion. It saw the institutionalisation of Vedic sacrifice and thus loaded with details like “the type of sacrifice, the variety of sacred fires, the number of officiating priests, the time and place of the performance, the formulas to be recited, the oblations to be offered, the utensils to be used, etc. This new complex institution of sacrifice naturally demanded new literature which would be devoted, more or less exclusively, to the deliberation of the theory and practice (particularly, the latter) of the Vedic ritual”. (Dandekar, 2000). Many of the Vedic practices have been continued by Hinudism, but, “Vedic religion 1 differs from classical Hinduism in a number of respects. First, the characteristic and dominant cults of classical Hinduism have been those of Visnu and Siva. Both gods are present in Vedic hymns, but Visnu is relatively unimportant. Moreover, the hymns make hostile refers to phallus- 1 https://msu.edu/~puhek/miem/Vedanta.html 3 worshippers (evidently cult of lingam associated. with Siva). Second, the cult of images and temple worship do not appear in Veda. Third, there was only a foreshadowing of later bhakti religion. Fourth, the division into varnas or classes was present, but not fully-fledged caste system of later Hinduism. Fifth, only in Upanishads is there the almost an all-pervasive belief, of Hinduism, in rebirth. Sixth, the center of religion is the sacrificial cultus, which later played a smaller and smaller actual part in the fabric of Hinduism. On other hand, Vedic religion set certain patterns that have maintained themselves. First, the dominance of Brahmin class was well established by mid-Vedic times. Second, upper-class patterns of initiation and domestic ritual have continued with relatively little change, considering the time-span involved. Third, the Upanishads have retained dominant position scripturally and have remained normative for expositions of Vedanta. Fourth, the pattern of identifying one divinity with another, etc., has been followed in later Hinduism in the task of synthesizing the variety of cults (for example, in the identification of Brahma, Siva and Visnu). Fifth, many gods of Vedic pantheon have persisted into later Hinduism, even if they have been less important cultically than they once were. Sixth, an import, factor in the unity of Indian culture has been Aryanization and Sanskritization of literary and administrative structures of the subcontinent in classical and medieval times— something which grew out of the culture represented by Vedic writings as mediated by the priesthood’s recognizing Vedic writings as revelation (Sruti). But at same time the incorporation of a supplementary canon (smrti) and the influence in medieval times of vernacular religions poetry (Alvars), Tantras and other texts, have in practice greatly modified the interpretation of the Veda”. Interlude period – laying the ground for alternate thoughts There were several factors that made it conducive for the rise of Jainism and Buddhism in India. Here I will touch upon only 2 factors, economic and religious. In the later Vedic period and during the Magadha Empire there was considerable economic prosperity and political consolidation. The values stressed in the Hindu religion were not conducive for an expanding national economy and the mercantile nature of cities where traders had to do business with people from different castes and 4 race and had no time for the cleansing rituals as a result, or the numerous injunctions against the utilization of certain resources and the restrictions on collaboration in production. Essentially, the Hindu tradition is oriented towards a rural, self-sufficient, relatively static agricultural society, while the values of the urban merchant and artisan were, like their medieval European counterparts, "no longer determined by their relations with the land"(Pirenne, 1956:45). Darian writes, “The Hindu Dharma Sutras (c. 500-200 B.C.) warn of the cities, where "the Vedas are not recited." The householder who has finished his religious studies is cautioned against spending too much time in the city, for people living there cannot attain salvation, despite their austerities. Manu (c. 1st century B.C.-3rd century A.D.) looks with disfavor on trade and industry (iv.5-6).” Similar as in medieval Europe where the new economic realities came into conflict with accepted theories of society, followers of Hinduism were going through this, whereas this conflict is lacking in the texts of Buddhism and Jainism, who accepted urban life and preached across rural and urban areas.

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