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Jaina Religion: Its Historical Journey of Evolution 33
culture of yajñas, śraddhā etc. spread even more in the Brāhmaṇa tradition. On the other hand, the thinkers who were emphasizing on internal aspects started ignoring the external aspects of spiritual endeavour completely; with the result, they also reached an extreme form of one-sidedness. Therefore, Mahāvīra tried to establish a synthesis of these two and said that religious endeavour is connected with life as a whole; and in that the internal inspirational force is even more important than external action or rituals in conduct.
Thus, Mahāvīra emphasized on both (i) the inspirational aspects of conduct (2) the consequences of conduct in religious life. He established a harmony between both knowledge and action. In Narasimhapurāņa (61/9/11) also, like Avaśyaka-niryukti (p. 15-17) the combi-nation of both knowledge and action has been described in many ways with examples or allegories. This proves that this thought-process of the Jaina tradition has influenced the Hindu tradition. Proclamation of equality of Man
Among the social problems of that period the institution of Varna was a major or significant problem. It was birth that was considered as the basis of Varna rather than one's station and one's personality traits or talent. With the result the
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