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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80
ACARYA VIJAYAVALLABHASŪRI COMMEMORATION VOLUME
seen above, may have been non-Vedic in origin. When some of the Vedic Brāhmaṇas were convinced of the Nivșttipara path or asceticism and left ritualism, the schools which accepted the authority of Vedas and also the superiority of Brāhmaṇas by birth got slowly assimilated to the Vedic cult. Probably amongst śramaņa sects, Sankhyas were the first to accept the authority of the Vedas and the superiority of Brāhmaṇas by birth; and perhaps this may be the reason why we find Sānkhya teachings reflected in the early Upanişads.
Whatever may be the case, this brief survey points out to one fact and that is that by the time of Mahāvīra and Buddha the śramaņas were a powerful influence affecting the spiritual and ethical ideas of the people. Even though by process of assimilation the Nivștti outlook became a common ideal both among the thinkers of the earlier Upanişads as well as among the śramaņa thinkers, the fact of the Sramaņa thinkers (that is, Jainas and Bauddhas) rejecting the authority of Vedas, the superiority of Brāhmaṇas by birth and their repugnance to animal-sacrifice as a form of worship, made them socially distinct and an antagonistic force with which the powerful and well-established Vedic sects had to contest. Here it may be noted that references in the earlier Buddhist Pițakas and Jaina Agamas as well as in Asoka's inscriptions to śramaņa-Brāhmaṇa do not indicate any enmity but imply that both are regarded as respectable. It is only in Patañjali's Mahābhāsya which is later than Asoka, that we find the compound śramaņa-Brāhmaṇam suggesting enmity. This may be the result of a contest of centuries between śramaņas and Brāhmaṇas.
Whether we accept this protestant-theory of the origin and rise of the Sramana or the theory of their independent pre-Vedic origin, one thing is clear that there was a great ferment of Sramaņa thought in or about the period of the earliest Upanişads and Aranyakas, i.e., about 800 B.C. As we have said above, the history of Jaina church also does not start with Mahāvīra but it goes as far back as Pārśva, i.e., 800 B.C.
The Jaina Agamas which are the earliest source for life and teachings of Mahāvīra point to one fact very clearly and that is that the Jñātaputra Vardhamāna had to make his way through a crowd of śramaņa and Vedic "Titthiyas" or "Tirthikas". Another point which becomes clear from Agamas is that Vardhamana's method was to harmonise and assimilate as much of different contending sects as was consistent with his main ideal of Moksa. This peculiar trait of Mahāvīra's method seems to be