Jains in India and Abroad

SR No.: 007601
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Prakash C Jain
Publisher: International Summer School for Jain Studies
Publication Year: 2011
Total Pages: 260
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 6 MB

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pioneered the different kinds of activities with a view to provide a new kind of social order meant for increasing the welfare of human beings” (Sangave 2006: 19). Jains often claim that the indigenous name of India, i.e, Bharat comes after the name of Bharat, the eldest son of Lord Rishabh Dev, in whose favour he had abdicated his throne and renounced the world. Incidentally, his other prominent son was Bahubali who is also worshiped by the Jains, but not as a tirthankar. As already mentioned, Lord Rishabh was followed by a succession of 23 Tirthankaras ending with Lord Mahavir.
Contrary to this Jainist view of the origin of Jainism, some scholars believe that Jainism constituted a reformatory movement within Brahmanism and that it was organically connected in a sect-like manner with Brahmanism. Thus, according to Lunia (1960) both Jainism and Buddhism were not new faiths and they arose as a result of the "disappointment" of certain Hindus with the Brahmanical religion. Similarly taking into account the notion of Indian "Great tradition", Singh (1973: 46) argues that both Jainism and Buddhism were the result of, “a process of inner dialectics in the worldview of Hinduism." In other words, not only Hindu cultural tradition internally reorganized from time to time (cultural renaissance), "another kind of change in this tradition is revealed in the formation of new, autonomous traditions through differentiation” (Ibid: 45). Thus, according to Singh, Jainism and Buddhism were purely orthogenetic in nature.
Although from the point of view of national integration this kind of "synthetic” approach is expedient, it is not useful in social scientific understanding of history. It mistakenly equates Brahmanism (Vedic religion) to Hinduism. What is forgotten in this regard is the fact that Hindu Great tradition itself is the result (a process of synthesis) and not necessarily the cause of a variety of autonomous traditions.
It is being increasingly recognized that "Jainism was not a revolt in the strict sense of the term against the existing Brahmanical hierarchy" (Thakur 1975: 251). On the contrary, as part of the Sramanic tradition, Jainism had already originated and spread among certain ethnic groups. Ethnographic studies of ancient Indian society show how before the consolidation of Aryan Vedic tradition,
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Jains in India and Abroad