On Indian Sect of Jainas

SR No.: 269096
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Jas Burgess
Total Pages: 40
Language: English
Classification: Article & 0_not_categorized
File Size: 90 KB

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The union of the laity with the order of ascetics has, naturally, exercised a powerful reaction on the former and its development, as well as on its teaching, and is followed by similar results in Jainism and Buddhism. Then, as regards the changes in the teaching, it is no doubt to be ascribed to the influence of the laity that the atheistic Jaina system, as well as the Buddhist, has been endowed with a cult. The ascetic, in his striving for Nirvana, endeavours to suppress the natural desire of man to worship higher powers. In the worldly hearer, who does not strive after this goal exclusively, this could not succeed. Since the doctrine gave no other support, the religious feeling of the laity clung to the founder of it: Jina, and with him his mythical predecessors, became gods. Monuments and temples ornamented with their statues were built, especially at those places, where the prophets, according to legends, had reached their goal. To this is added a kind of worship, consisting of offerings of flowers and incense to Jina, of adoration by songs of praise in celebration of their entrance into Nirvana, of which the Jaina makes a great festival by solemn processions and pilgrimages to the places where it has been attained. [16] This influence of the laity has become, in course of time, of great importance to Indian art, and India is indebted to it for a number of its most beautiful architectural monuments, such as the splendid temples of Abu, Girnâr and Satruñjaya in Gujarât. It has also brought about a change in the mind of the ascetics. In many of their hymns in honour of Jina, they appeal to him with as much fervour as the Brâhman to his gods; and there are often expressions in them, contrary, to the original teaching, ascribing to Jina a creative power. Indeed a Jaina description of the six principal systems goes so far as to number Jainism--as also Buddhism--among the theistic religions. [17]
But in other respects also the admission of the laity has produced decisive changes in the life of the clergy. In the education of worldly communities, the ascetic--whose rules of indifference toward all and every thing, make him a being concentrated entirely upon himself and his goal--is united again to humanity and its interests. The duty of educating the layman and watching over his life, must of necessity change the wandering penitents into settled monks--who dedicate themselves to the care of souls, missionary activity, and the acquisition of knowledge, and who only now and again fulfil the duty of changing their place of residence. The needs of the lay communities required the continual presence of teachers. Even should these desire to change from time to time, it was yet necessary to provide a shelter for them. Thus the Upâśraya or places of refuge, the Jaina monasteries came into existence, which exactly correspond to the Buddhist Sanghârâma. With the monasteries and the fixed residence in them appeared a fixed membership of the order, which, on account of the Jaina principle of unconditional obedience toward the teacher, proved to be much stricter than in Buddhism. On the development of the order and the leisure of monastic life, there followed further, the commencement of a literary and scientific activity. The oldest attempt, in this respect, limited itself to bringing their doctrine into fixed forms. Their results were, besides other lost works, the so-called Anga,--the members of the body of the law, which was perhaps originally produced in the third century B.C. Of the Anga eleven are no doubt preserved among the Svetâmbaras from a late edition of the fifth or sixth century A.D. These works are not written in Sanskrit, but in a popular Prakrit dialect: for the Jina, like Buddha, used the language of the people when teaching. They contain partly legends about the prophet and his activity as a teacher, partly fragments of a doctrine or attempts at systematic representations of the same. Though the dialect is different they present, in the form of the tales and in the manner of expression, a wonderful resemblance to the sacred writings of the Buddhists. [18] The Digambaras, on the other hand, have preserved nothing of the Anga but the names. They put in their place later systematic works, also in Prakrit, and assert, in