Essence of Jainism

Author(s): Sukhlal Sanghavi
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 76

Essence of Jainism
Pravartaka Dharma- Prescriptive Religion or Religion of activity
Another class of thinkers no doubt takes physical joys of life to be an end, but tbey also believe that the happiness that is possible to be had in this life also continues in the births that follow after one is reborn on death. In this manner, the series of rise and fall of physical and mental joys continues. If we want to be happy in the other birth as in the present coe, or if we want to acquire greater happiness, we should resort to religious deeds also. Earning of prosperity may become a means useful and beneficial in this life, but religious merit is a must for the high and higher happiness of other lives. Persons who held this ideology resorted to various religious works and had the faith of acquiring the higher joys of other worlds, This class of thinkers is Ātmavādi and accepts higher the theory of rebirth, but its expectation is to scale higher and heights of happiness and to make this happiness more and more steady for longer periods of time. Their religious practices are here. fore known as Pravartaka dharma. A brief summary of this would be this. One should try to make ones social system regularized and active in such a manner that every member of the society
aps happiness as per his ability and status and prepares for the life after death in such a manner that he is enabled to acquire greater and more steady bappiness even in the other birth. The purpose of Pravartaku dharma is to better the birth hereafter along with the social system. It is not to uproot the life hereafter. According to the Pravartaka dharma thus, there are 3 efforts- Purušā. rthas. The fourth Puruśārtha liberation - Moksa-is not conceived of along with Kāma, Artha and Dharma. The ancient Tranjan Aryans whose religious scripture was the Avesta and the ancient Vedic Aryans who believed only in the mantia and Brāhmaṇa part of the Vedas, were all the followers of this Pravartaka dharma. The · Mimāṁsā-darśana 'that was written later in the Vedic tradition was of ritualistic nature and a living form of this Pravartaka dharma.