Jain Journal 1972 01

SR No.: 520025
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication
Publication Year: 1972
Total Pages: 52
Language: English
Classification: Magazine, India_Jain Journal, & India
File Size: 3 MB

Page 8

94
lowest form of life, for instance the earth or stone body etc., has only one sense, that of feeling. The highest form of life, the human body, has several senses, mind being the most important "sense".
Jainism is an animistic faith par excellence. No other primitive religion has had animism as such as an integral part of itself. In this connection it is worth quoting Dr. J. F. Kohl as quoted by Dr. Kamta Prasad Jain in the Religion of Tirthankaras :
"The Jaina religion is based on pre-Aryan ideas and one of these is animism. It is the source of respect to all living beings; we can learn that ahimsa is not only the greatest conception, but also one of the most ancient in the world." (p. 19)
Jainism and the Caste System
Nothing could be more foreign to the spirit of Jainism than the caste system. In a religion in which each man is "the master of his fate and the captain of his soul" the most exalted man is he who is not passion's slave...he who has attained the Jaina ideal of complete noninjury towards all.
JAIN JOURNAL
The caste idea was imported into India when the Aryans conquered the country in approximately 1500 B.C. It became a system when it was applied to the subjected Dravidians. The highest and only purely Aryan caste was that of the Brahmans. The caste below that was that of the Ksatriyas or warriors; this was originally an Aryan caste also. However, the princely houses of the native Dravidians remained in existence and constituted a threat to the Aryan warriors.
66
in the seventh and sixth centuries B.C. when the strength of the Aryan Ksatriyas was greatly diminished as a result of incessant internecine warfare, and their power over Northern India broken, there came the dark age during which men of various extractions came into power-both the scions of some of the surviving pre-Aryan regal families, and soldiers of fortune of inferior birth. We know, for example that Candragupta was an adherent of a non-Vedic creed (that of the Jainas) (Zimmer, p. 105)
""
...
Had not the Dravidian warriors seized power at the right moment, all Dravidians might have been consigned for ever to the sudra (lowest) caste. This would have meant that Jainism would have declined and that Buddhism would probably never have arisen.