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Institution of Class and Order
ascribe the origin of the Varna in question, to a fictitious event said to have taken place during the reign of the first Cakri Bharata. According to the version, the Brahmana Varna owes its origin to the compassion of the first tirthankara who saved the heretics from the wrath of Cakrın Bharata who was about to put them to death on being informed by the lord that the men whom he had honoured with valuable gifts and regarded as the best of the Sravakas, were hypocrites They were fof perverse conduct and religion, had no restriction with regard to undertaking and possession, and themselves stupefied, they confused other people also "5 And as Bharata was prevented (from killing them) by Rşabha Jina saying må hana (do not kill), so they came to be called Mähanas.
205
Thus, the abovementioned account makes us believe that the original designation of the class known as Brahmana was Mähana which eventually was Sanskritized into Brahmana It is, however, obvious that the present representation is a distortion of an equally fanciful interpretation of the term as given in the Avasyakacūrnı 7 The work states that the simple and religious-minded Sravahas, who were honoured by Bharata, received the class designation Mahana because of the fact that whenever they saw anyone killing, they stopped him by saying 'do not kill' (mä hana). Hemacandra also adopts the same version with some modification And apparently without taking notice of the accounts as given by Vimala and Ravişena, the author of the TSPC represents the Mahanas as religious-minded men, devoted to the study of the scriptures 8 These laymen, as the work says, were requested by Bharata to recite before him "you
5 विवरीयवित्तिधम्मा प्रारम्भ परिग्गहेसु ग्रणियत्ता | सयमेव मूढभावा सेसं पि जण विमोहन्ति ॥
-VPC, 4 81
6 मा हरसु पुत्त एए ज उसभजिणेण वारिश्रो भरहो । तेरण इमे सयलच्चिय वुच्चन्ति य माहरणा लोए ॥
7 pp 5, 213ff, quoted in LAI, p 140 8 TSPC, 1 6 22"-28
-VPC, 4 84 Also RPC 4 121-122
