Lord Mahavira and His Times

SR No.: 011080
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Kailashchandra Jain
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas
Publication Year: 1974
Total Pages: 427
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 20 MB

Page 173

Lord Mahavira's Religious contemporaries and Sects
ORIGIN OF THESE SECTS
There are divergent views among the scholars about the origin of these ascetic intellectual movements. According to T.W. RHYS DAVIDS1, the growth of the wandering bodies of religieux, the Paribbājakas, was the result of an intellectual movement before the rise of Buddhism which was, in a large measure, a lay-movement, not a priestly movement. It is difficult to understand this movement as a lay-movement. It was in fact neither priestly nor lay. It originated neither in Brahmanical reform nor in Kshatriya revolt; nor was it a middle class effort. It was a classless and casteless movement, and it had no special affinity with the attitude and interest of any particular social classes.
MAX MULLER,2 G. BUHLER,3 H. KERN, and H. JACOBI5 -all contend that the Brahmanical 'ascetic' was the model of the Buddhist, the Jaina, and the other heretical sects of this age. It has also been suggested that these arose out of the antiritualistic tendency gaining ground within the religion of the Brahmaņas. G. C. PANDEY has tried to show that the antiritualistic tendency within the Vedic fold is itself due to the impact of an asceticism which antedates the Vedas. Some of the sects, such as Jainism and the Ajivikism, may represent a continuation of this pre-Vedic stream.
There was not one but several factors which gave rise to these religious movements. It was an age of frequent and bloody wars, which made people long for peace. The great economic prosperity also filled some of them with despair of material life. There was considerable social distress because of the rigid caste system. The clash of rival schools and sects also led the people to spiritual quest.
ŚRAMAŅA AND BRAHMANICAL SECTS
The sects of this age were divided into many classes, but
1. RBI, p. 111.
2. Hibbert Lectures. p. 351.
3. SBE, II, pp. 191, 192.
4.
153
Manual of Indian Buddhism.
5. SBE, XXII, p. xxiv.
6. Pson. p. 317.