Yasastilaka and Indian Culture

SR No.: 001609
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Krishnakant Handiqui
Publisher: Jain Sanskruti Samrakshak Sangh Solapur
Publication Year: 1968
Total Pages: 566
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Story, Literature, & Culture
File Size: 16 MB

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YASASTILAKA AND INDIAN CULTURE
of mental activity the Self acquires karma, good and bad (Book IV, p. 137). Thus, according to Somadeva, mental activity represented by abhinivesa or saņkalpa involves a process which gives rise to the physical act and determines its moral validity. And ahimsā is not merely abstention from killing, but presupposes the absence of the very idea of killing, the complete absence of any sarkalpa that might have the remotest connection with injury to living creatures.
The insistence on ahimsā brought Jainism into conflict with diverse cults, and Yasastilaka preserves a faithful record of the religious conflict of the times. Somadeva's romance is a notable protest not only against the Vedic sacrificial system but against the debased form of contemporary Kaula or Tantric cults involving human sacrifice, and contains also important data on the historic conflict between Saivism and Jainism in the South. These topics have been dealt with in subsequent chapters, and we may here confine our remarks to the protest against Tantric and Vedic rites. It may be noted that such protests occur also in Jaina works outside Sanskrit literature, for example, in the poem Neelakesi, one of the early Tamil classics,' which describes how the Jaina ascetic Municandra puts a stop to blood offerings to Kāli, and foils the designs of the goddess and her chief Neelakesī, who is ultimately converted to Jainism, and preaches the doctrine of ahimsū. The Neelakesi is also a controversial work, like Somadeva's Yasastilaka, directed against Buddhism and other systems, one chapter being devoted to the criticism of Vedavāda involving animal sacrifices.
It will be remembered that Yasastilaka opens with the Māradatta episode which shows the Tantric cult in the darkest colours, and there is hardly any parallel to Somadeva's graphic description of the temple of Candamari and, its horrid atmosphere in the whole range of Sanskrit literature. The human victims are brought to the temple, but not actually sacrificed; and this gives the author an opportunity of demonstrating the salutary influence of Jainism, which undoubtedly did good work by raising its voice against blood-thirsty cults like those of Candamāri or Caņdikā.” A somewhat similar episode occurs in Haribhadra's Samarāiccakahā (Book VI) in the story of Dharana, who is brought by th
rana who is brought by the Sabaras to the temple of Kādambarī or Candikā as an offering, but is not actually immolated;
11.
1 See Jaina Antiquary, Vol. VI, No. 2 and Vol. VII, No. 1. 2 See Chap. II. 3 Compare the early Christian protest against human sacrifices, e. g. in Clement's
Exhortation to the Greeks (second century). In that work he records a number of Pagan cults involving human sacrifice, and remarks that such sacrifice is murder and human butchery.