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Davids also says, "The Jainas have been an organised community all through the history of India from before the rise of Buddhism down to the present time".
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There is also no doubt that the Śramana culture emerged as a world force only after the reformation of Jainism and the rise of Buddhism about the sixth century B.C. It was a cardinal epoch in human history, an age of extra-ordinary intellectual and spiritual unrest. The entire world atmosphere was electrified by a wide-spread awakening. Confucious and Lao-tse in China, Zoroaster in Persia, Moses in Palestine and Pythagoras in Greece promulgated their teachings about this time. In India, in the Brahmanic fold if on the one hand Vedic ritualism was being made more elaborate, obtruse and rigid, on the other the Upanishadic spiritualism, probably under the influence of the Śramaņas, was sounding an antiVedic note and exploring the nature of soul and Brahma. The six sistems of traditional Brahmanical Philosophy also began to be evolved about this time. Then there were the materialists Lokayatas or Chārvākas who believed neither in soul nor in the life before or after death. This was the time when the Śramana world was on the basis of their traditional belief anxiously waiting for the appearance of Tirthankara or Tirthika. The bloody sacrifices, the pretensions and casteexclusiveness of the Brahmanas, the inferior status allotted to women, the exclusion of the so-called lower-castes, who formed the bulk of the masses, from the benefits of active religion, inequity and injustice were galling to the people in general and had thus further prepared the ground for new doctrines to germinate. In fact, there was in that age an extra-ordinary impulse shown in the rise and development of new theological and philosophical ideas. Many ardent spirits were unusually active in the quest of truth, and the chief centre of this ferment was Magadha, including part of Kosala, where the Brahmanic influence was not yet so deep or potent. A host of teachers roamed about the country propagating their views through which they claimed to solve the obtruse problems of soul and God, help in escaping from the endless misery of the boundless cycle of births and deaths and make life and living happy. According to the
| SR No. | 010092 |
| Book Title | Jain Darshan aur Sanskruti Parishad |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Mohanlal Banthia |
| Publisher | Mohanlal Banthiya |
| Publication Year | 1964 |
| Total Pages | 263 |
| Language | Hindi |
| Classification | Book_Devnagari |
| File Size | 9 MB |