Jain Journal 1971 10

SR No.: 520024
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication
Publication Year: 1971
Total Pages: 45
Language: English
Classification: Magazine, India_Jain Journal, & India
File Size: 3 MB

Page 23

Revival of Sramana Dharma in the Later Vedic Age
JYOTI PRASAD JAIN
The Vedic age of Indian history is supposed to have ended with the Mahabharata War, which is now generally fixed in the fifteenth century before the birth of Christ. According to the Brahmanical Pauranic tradition, the war also marked the end of the Dvāpara age and the beginning of the Kali-yuga. And, historically, the period from circa 1400 B. C. to 600 B.C. is designated as the Later Vedic Age, which is synchronised by a great revival of Sramanism and a consequent decline in Brahmanical Vedicism.
The chief features of this age were an unprecedented elaboration and rigidity in Vedic ritualism, a classification and compilation of the Vedic hymns into four Samhitās (Rk, Yajuh, Sama and Atharva), the writing of abstruse prose commentaries, called the Brāhmaṇas on the Samhitas, as also another class of Vedic commentaries, the Aranyakas, so called because they were composed by forest recluses, and the creation of a series of mystico-philosophical treatises, the Upanisads. The six Vedāngas, secondary limbs of the Vedas, were evolved. The simple Vedic hymns were burdened with highly intricate, involved and confusing interpretations. The sacrificial cult, at least in theory, reached its climax. In the time of Adhisimakrsna, fifth in descent from Pariksit, the Kuru king of Hastinapura, the sutas, it is said, recited before a congregation of Brahmanical ascetics the traditional saga of ancient heroes, said to have been originally composed by the Rsi Vyasa. It was this collection of traditional lore which later formed the basis of the epics, the Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata, dating not much earlier than the beginning of the Christian era, and of the principal Brahmanical Purāṇas, produced in the Gupta and post-Gupta periods.
On the other hand, this age witnessed a widespread revolt against the Vedic sacrificial cult which involved the killing of different animals (cow, bull, goat, horse and even human beings) and was marked by very elaborate ceremonial, rigid and complex ritualism. The chief reason of this revolt was the growing influence of the non-violent and