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The Sramanic Vision Buddha and Mahavira
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extremely critical of the brahmanical system, the hereditary basis of caste and animal sacrifices, both did not care much about the intervention of intracosmic Gods and both preached the value of a moral life in terms of the theory of karma. Both Mahavira and Buddha lived in the sixth century B.C. In their teaching the existence of intra-cosmic Gods as higher beings was considered more or less irrelevant, as a casual factor for individual salvation, because man could transcend karma by his own effort alone. Although they recognized functional Gods, it was stressed that the Universal process (Sansar) was a result of certain immutable laws of action (Karma) resulting in progress and decline. These action particles bind the soul, which inconsequently embodied in different incarnations in a cycle of birth and rebirth. The soul acts and suffers the pangs of the body in which it is clothed. The present life is determined by our past karma which survives the decay of the body and clings to the soul in its new incarnation. The doctrine of Karma is extremely complex and well developed in Jainism. Be that as it may, both subscribed to the ideal of liberation by one's own individual effort as transcending the ever going cycle of birth and death and rebirth. Both stressed that every soul or link in the casual chain as the Buddhist viewed it, by its own effort, regardless of the grace of God, could achieve this by acquisition of right knowledge which had many sides. The highest knowledge was kaivalya jnana in Jainism and nirvana in Buddhism.
Buddhism and Jainism were largely product of revolt against the system of animal sacrifice which had crept into brahmanical rituals. Jainism developed a marvelous epistemological theory called anekantvada and wedded it to the doctrine of non-violence. Following the story of the elephant and the six blind men, it was argued that it is very rarely that one side is completely right and the other side completely wrong in a dispute. The world in not divided between absolute right and absolute wrong. There are many
| SR No. | 022848 |
| Book Title | Aacharya Premsagar Chaturvedi Abhinandan Granth |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Ajaykumar Pandey |
| Publisher | Pratibha Prakashan |
| Publication Year | 2010 |
| Total Pages | 502 |
| Language | Hindi |
| Classification | Smruti_Granth |
| File Size | 36 MB |