Chapter V a Short History of Jainism Origin And

CHAPTER V A SHORT HISTORY OF JAINISM ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT Jainism, like Buddhism, arose as a reaction against Hinduism, Originally an heterodox Hindu sect, it evolved as a mode of perfecting a basic Hindu ideal. Buddhism and Jainism both sprang up in the classical period of ancient India (500 - 300 B. C. ) as a solution to the central problems of Indian life. Every religious Hindu was deeply concerned with the problem of never-ending rebirth. The samsara or the wheel of rebirth, as it is known to the Hindus, rested on conviction of the transmigration of souls. The soul of a man at death is believed to pass into another existence, except in the case of one who at death became of unusual holiness merged with Brahma. Depending upon one's merits, successive rebirths could be on a higher or a lower plane. A man of low caste could be born into a noble family or vice versa. The law of Karma decides man's fate; everything a man does, his thoughts, deeds and all actions were thought to have fateful consequences. "Thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting, "^ could be true of any man. "Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap"^ Daniel 5:27. Galatians 6:7. 161 meant to the Hindu that if a man were born a Shudra, it was because he had sinned in his previous existence. A passage in the Candogya Upanishad states: "Those who are of pleasant conduct here, the prospect is, indeed, that they will enter a pleasant womb, either the womb of a Brahmin, or the womb of a Kshytriya, or the womb of a Vaisya. But those who are of a stinking conduct here, the prospect is, indeed, that they will enter either the womb of a swine, or the womb of an outcast. " Hinduism permitted a wide latitude of beliefs. One could be monotheistic, polytheistic, pantheistic, monistic, dualistic, pluralistic. One could attend a temple or stay at home and follow a loose or strict moral conduct. However, it was required of each person that he follow the rules of his caste; this was equivalent to being a righteous man and earning credit in the life hereafter. ^R. E. Hume, The Thirteen Principal Upanishads, (London: Oxford University Press, 1934), Chandoya, 5:10.7, p. 233. ^The word caste means division and is of Portuguese origin. On arrival in India the Portuguese in the I6th century found the Hindu community divided into many separate groups. Tribes, clans or families were called castes by them. From this time many have accepted the traditional view that the remarkable prolification of castes in the 18th and 19th century India was due to intermarriage and sub-division. The 3, 000 or more castes in modern India had evolved from the four primitive classes. The term caste was applied indiscrinainately to both varna or class, and jati or caste proper. Basham states that this is a false terminology; castes rise and fall in the social scale, and old castes die out and new ones are formed, but the four great classes are stable. (See A. L. Basham, The Wonder that Was India, p. 148. ) That is, caste is a development of thousands of years from the association of many different racial and other groups in a single cultural system. It is very difficult to show its origin. Traditionally 162 By about the end of the seventh century B. C. , ancient Indian society was in fernaent. Four distinct social groups were recognized at this time: the Kshatriyas or warriors; the Brahmans, the priests; the Vaisyas, the traders; and the Shudras, the Aryan servants. In old Aryan conquest territory, the Kshatriya aris tocrats and kings utilized the Brahmans to legitimize their power. All people by this time held the sacred prayer formulas recited by the Brahmans at the time of the sacrifice as extremely important for success in life. The Kshatriyas, who implored the Brahmans to use these formulas before facing the enemy, were led to believe by the Brahmans that success was the result of their intercession to the Brahma; the Brahmans claimed that they alone had the prerogative to utter the sacred formulas. Eventually the Brahman priests declared openly that they occupied the central place of power. They had compiled the Brahmanas; and, by proper use of these they were in a position to procure the desired results. By in ancient times, each varna was assigned a broad occupational field within which its members were theoretically combined. Thus we have members of the Brahman-varna, who could be priests and teachers etc. , Kshatriya -varna, etc. The stratification system which affects most directly the daily lives of the Indian people is jati. Origin of occupational consciousness probably did not exist in ancient India. However, at least one Indologist, Professor Iravati Karve, argues that the jati system existed in India prior to the arrival of the Aryans. The invaders brought with them a class system, and the two systems had to become accommodated to each other. See Administration and Economic Developnnent in India, eds. Braibanti and Spengler, (Durham, North Carolina:~Duke University Press, 1963), pp. 204-205; Dr. (Mrs. ) Irvati Karve, Kinship Organization In India, (Poona: Deccan College Monograph Series; 11, Poona 1953], p. 7. 163 about 500 B. C. the caste system became rigid and emerged in the following order: The Brahmans, the Kshatriyas, the Vaisyas and finally the Shudras. These last, outside of the pale of this social structure, were the "untouchables" of the outcastes. Innumerable subcastes were formed within each caste. The states of northern India at the time were variably "Aryanized" (i. e. , brought under the domination of Aryan princes). In the states farming in northeast India, the Royal families sponsored the heterodox religions as a weapon against the Brahmans. Many people were disturbed by the theory propogated by the Brahmans that the reason they found themselves in the first category in the social structure was the result of the Law of Karma, that is, they had done well in their previous birth; and that no one could merge himself with the Brahma, the ultinnate reality, unless one had the good fortune of being born a Brahman. The Brahmans argued that, since they had a record of best spiritual attainment, they deserved to be on the top. There was considerable resistance from the Kshatriyas; however, with no notion of contradicting the fact of transmigration and the consequences of Karma in deter mining destiny, they were deprived of any weighty counter argument to offer and had to be content at length with second place. ^ Some were prepared to concede reluctantly to the Brahmans the social 5john B. Noss, Man's Religions, (New York: The Macmillan Company), p. 137. 164 prestige of being at the top in the caste system, but many wondered if it were absolutely necessary for a person to be born a Brahman first before being permitted to merge himself with the Brahma (as the Hindus called it), the ground of all reality whether objective or subjective. Heroic efforts were made by the founders of Jainism, later followed by those of Buddhism, to find a way of escape from this dilemma. Hinduism was based on the conviction that the chief error of man lies in his thinking, that is believing that his miseries are due to fallacies in his conception of things rather than to sin in his living. Early Buddhism located the chief missteps in the area of feeling. Jainism placed prinnary emphasis on behaviour, how one acts. One must behave so as to avoid contamination by matter, defiling as pitch and destructive of all spirituality of being.° In the Occident it is commonly believed that Vardhamana Mahavira, a contemporary of Gautama Buddha, was the founder of Jainism. Traditionally, however, the Jains regarded Mahavira not as the first but the last of the Tirthankaras. Undoubtedly, several of the Tirthankaras were mythological; however, Heinrich Zimmer believes that there is sufficient ground to accept the authenticity of the existence of Parsvanatha, "the Lord Parsva", who is alleged to have attained liberation two hundred and forty- ^Ibid. , p. 112. 165 six years before Mahavira. The Jains have such profound respect for Parsva that we read in one passage: At the mere mention of the name of the Lord Parsva disturbances cease, the sight (darsana) of him destroys the fear of rebirths, and his worship removes the guilt of sin. "^ The Tirthankaras or the Makers of the River-Crossing are not to be worshipped, although they may be contemplated. They are believed beyond the reach of intercession. They have attained the state of nirvana and have passed beyond the godly governors of the natural order. Hence, Zimmer regards Jainism not as atheistic but as transtheistic. The Tirthankaras are supposed to be beyond cosmic events as well as the problems of biography. They are transcendent, cleaned of temporality, omniscient, actionless, and absolutely at peace. The Jain is expected to exercise ascetic discipline and contemplate passing the Tirthankaras. These practices assist him in passing beyond needs and anxieties to prayer, "and beyond the blissful heavens in which those gods and their worshippers abide, into the remote, trans cendent, 'cut-off zone of pure, uninflicted existence to which the Q Crossing-Makers, the Tirthankaras, have cleaved the way. " The adherents of Mahavira regard him to be the twenty- fourth Tirthankara. His predecessor Parsva, being the twenty- •7 Heinrich Zimmer, Philosophies of India, (New York: Meridian Books, 1956), p. 181. ^Ibid., p. 182. 166 third having obtained Nirvana 246 years before Mahavira. ' Reliable dates are not available; however, some authorities including Zimmer, accept 772 B.

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