Vijay Vvallabhsuri Smarak Granth

SR No.: 012060
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Mahavir Jain Vidyalaya Mumbai
Publisher: Mahavir Jain Vidyalay
Publication Year: 1956
Total Pages: 756
Language: Hindi, Gujarati, English
Classification: Smruti_Granth & Articles
File Size: 24 MB

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JETLY: HISTORICAL POSITION OF JAINISM
79
did 'Pujana' become popular and the prevalent form of worship among all the classes of people but even in pure 'Yajana' of sacrifices imageworship was brought in, in one form or another. For example, the 'Pūjana' of Ganapati has got its priority in every type of 'Yajana'.
D. R. Bhandarkar? deals with the problem of non-Vedic sects in some details in his "Some Aspects of Ancient Indian Culture". In this work, he draws upon archaeological researches as well as literary works like Vedas, Brāhmaṇas, Sūtras, Pițakas and Agamas. There he shows the origin of saivism to lie in non-Vedic Vrātya cult. Similarly according to him Jainism and Buddhism have their origin in a Vrşala tribe. This tribe had its own independent civilization and gave stubborn resistance to the imposition of Brāhmaṇic culture by the Aryans. This tribe chiefly resided in the north-east part of the country which is now known as Bihar and which is the birthplace of Jainism and Buddhism. In fact he has ably discussed the relation of the non-Vedic cultures with that of Vedic ones and has shown how some of the non-Vedic cults like Yoga and others were assimilated in Vedic cult.
The findings of D. R. Bhandarkar strengthen the older hypothesis of Winternitz pertaining to the independent origin of the Gramana sects. Winternitz has discussed the problem in some detail in his lectures on 'Ascetic Literature in Ancient India'? He has paid tributes to the scholars like Rhys David, E. Lenmann and Richard Garbe who combated the older view of Vedic origin of the Sramaņa sects. His chief grounds are the constant occurrence of the term śramaņa-Brāhmana in Buddhist Pițakas and in Aśoka's inscriptions; legends, poetic maxims and parables found in the Mahābhārata as well as in Purānas. He closely examines the Pitā-Putra Samvāda, Tulādhāra-Jājali Samvāda. Madhubindu parable and such other Samvādas and compares them with their different versions found in Jaina Agamas and Buddhist Játakas. Thus examining thoroughly the different passages referring to asceticism and showing their contrast with those referring to ritualism, he concludes, "The origin of such ascetic poetry found in the Mahābhārata and Puranas may have been either Buddhist or Jaina or the parable passages may all go back to the same source of an ascetic literature that probably arose in connection with Yoga and Sankhya teaching."3 'The Sāņknya and Yoga schools, as we have
1. "Some Aspects of Ancient Indian Culture", pp. 40-52. 2. "Some Problems of Indian Literature", p. 21. 3. Ibid., page 40.