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Essence of Jainism
the Śramapas lay great stress on austerity?" At this time Buddha was to answer and defend his side and at the same time, he wanted to attract the common people, the officers as also kings and emperors towards his beliefs. It was therefore unavoidable for him severely to criticise austerity. He did this. But he could succeed in his criticism only when he could prove that austerity is nothing short of torture.
There were no doubt, so many paths of asceticism that took the fulfilment of austerity to lie only in various external tortures. Buddha's repudiation of austerity is correct as far as these paths. of external austerity are concerned. But his repudiation does not sound rational and just when it comes to the repudiation of austerities associated with spiritual purity. Still, Buddha has openly criticised Nirgranth austerities now and again. We can explain this away by stating that here Buddha has kept his mind only on external austerities without taking into consideration the outlook of the Nirgrantha tradition fully. He criticised even the Nirgrantha. tradition along with the repudiation of other traditions. Again, whatever be the philosophical point of view of the Nirgrantha tradition, if we observe human nature, we can state, on the basis of several descriptions that we come across in the Jain works1, that all Nirgrantha ascetics did not necessarily make meaningful their austerity or physical torture only in spiritual purity. If Buddha or his pupils have repudiated the Nirgrantha austerity under such circumstances, this is proper upto some limit. Peculiarity introduced by Bhagavan Mabāvira
The answer to the second question can be derived from the Jain Agamas themselves. Like Buddha, Mabāvīra also did not look upon physical torture as the aim of life. This is proved from the fact that he has designated several ascetics undertaking physical torture as fruitless and false ascetics. In matters of austerity also the outlook of Parsvanatha did not confine itself just to physical suffering and torture; be aimed at spiritual purity thereby. Yet, we cannot doubt the fact that even the Nirgrantha tradition, being 1. Uttaradhyayana, Adh. 17 2. Bhagavati, 3-1; 11-9.
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