Bruhat Katha kosha

Author(s): Harishen Acharya,
Publisher: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan

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BRHAT-KATHAKOSA
fluenced by the latter. Different scholars have differently described this indigenous religion of Eastern India. Jacobi called it Popular religion; Leumann held that its propounders were the Parivrājakas; Garbe associated it with the Ksatriyas; Rhys Davids has recognised the influence of well-organised sophistic wanderers; Winternitz conveniently designated these ideas as 'Ascetic poetry'; and I called this stream of thought by the name 'Magadhan religion'. As I have said elsewhere, 'we should no more assess the Samkhya, Jaina, Buddhistic and Ajīvika tenets as mere perverted continuations of stray thoughts selected at random from the Upanisadic bed of Aryan thoughtcurrent. The inherent similarities in these systems, as against the essential dissimilarities with Aryan (Vedic and Brahmanic) religion and the gaps that a dispassionate study might detect between the Vedic (including the Brāhmaṇas) and Upanisadic thought.currents, really point out to the existence of an indigenous stream of thought, call it for convenience the Magadhan Religion, which was essentially pessimistic in its worldly outlook, metaphysically dualistic if not pluralistic, animistic and ultra humane in its ethical tenets, temperamentally ascetic, undoubtedly accepting the dogma of transmigration and Karma doctrine, owing no racial allegiance to Vedas and Vedic rites, subscribing to the belief of individual perfection, and refusing unhesitatingly to accept a creator." Jainism and Buddhism are fairly typical representatives of this Magadhan religion the back-ground of which I have outlined thus elsewhere: "This brief survey of some of the important tenets of Jaimism compared and contrasted here and there with those of other Indian systems tempts me to try to state tentatively the position of Jainism in the evolution of Indian religio-philosophical thought. Its non-acceptance of Vedic authority, wholly common with Buddhism and partly with Samkhya, perhaps indicates that these three belong to one current of thought. They have in common the theory of transmigration with the attendant pessimistic outlook of life and Karma doctrine as an automatic law of retribution which appear definitely for the first time in Upanisads so far as the Vedic literature is concerned. The humane and ethical outlook and the downright denunciation of Himsã, whether for personal ends or for sacrificial purposes, are common to all the three. That Buddhism and Samkhya have much in common is not a new thing to orientalists. Ontological dualism, the plurality of spirits, the misleading of the spirit by matter, the early Samkhya belief that there are as many Prakṛtis as there are Purusas and many other technical details are common to Jainism and Samkhya. In all the three systems there is no place for a creator or superhuman distributor of prizes and punishments. These common points are not at all consistent with the natural evolution of the Vedic religion till almost the middle of the Upanisadic period. Especially the Samkhya, which is accepted as orthodox possibly because of its fascinating terminology, inspite of its glaring inconsistencies with the accepted orthodoxy, has influenced some of the Upanisads; and later on being coupled with theistic
1 Pravacanasara, Bombay 1935, Preface pp. 12–13. For Private & Personal Use Only
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