Bhagvana Mahavira

Author(s): Tulsi Acharya
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati

Page 11

Before the Advent of Bhagavān Mahāvīra
ahińsă and self-discipline which Bhagavān Pārśva had launched began to lose its momentum within a couple of centuries of his nirvāņa. When Bhagavān Mahāvīra started his career, he found social values in the melting pot. Society was governed by brute force. Kings had become deified. Their subjects were forced to acknowledge their sovereignty and to bear the yoke of tyranny as a matter of duty. The royal priests had whipped up such a psychosis of respect for the kings that their edicts came to be treated as divine decrees. To oppose them was to invite vengeance.
Wealth had begun to be worshipped. Society became divided into the rich and the poor. Human beings were purchased and converted into slaves and treated as cattle or beasts of burden. The masters were entitled to punish them in any way they liked. Royal power and the power of wealth forced a division between men and men. The principle of human equality and unity became eclipsed. Casteism began to encourage social discrimination. The sūdras were considered low and the untouchables lower still. Human intelligence came to be discredited and a man's worth was measured according to the status of his caste, power and wealth. This resulted in a sense of superiority in the wealthy and that of inferiority in the poor. The popular faith in the distorted doctrine of karma contributed its share in developing such a situation. The wretched were supposed to have been born with the evil effects of their misdeeds in the past life which they must pay for with suffering in this life. They were expected to bear their present miseries with patience.
There was very little education and it was limited to the rich few. The comman man lived by physical labour only. He was not at all awakened to raise his voice against injus
tice.
There were two main traditions of religion--the Sramana and the Vedic. The framaņas were organised into several samghas or monastic orders and the most highly enlightened