History of Jaina Monachism

Author(s): S B Deo
Publisher: Deccan College Research Institute

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HISTORY OF JAINA MONACHISM CHARPENTIER also joins their rank when he opines that, “....it is strange characteristic of these sects (Jaina and Buddhist), so far as we know of them, that they adopted in their ascetic practices and in their whole mode of life the rules which had already been fixed by their Brahmin antagonists.":41
The real solution to this problem lies in the antiquity or otherwise of the Sannyasa Aśrama of Brāhmanism.
According to N. N. Law the traces of the āśrama theory can be detected even in the early Vedic works. He remarks that we do get evidence of the existence of "the student (brahmacārin), the householder (grihastha) and the person who renounced the world (muni or yati).... in the earliest Vedic works.":42
Inspite of this, however, one cannot take for granted that this theory of the four āśramas was rigorously worked out at that time. For, it is only in the Svetāśvatara Upanishad43 that one gets a reference to the 'atyāśramin'. Moreover, in the Brhadāranyaka Upanishad44 we find Yajnavalkya joining the fourth aśrama (i.e. sannyāsa), without undergoing the third. It would be clear from this instance that this theory of four āśramas was possibly still without a proper sequence in its different stages, even in the oldest of the Upanishads.
In this connection SHARMA says, “In the oldest Upanishads, there is evidence of only the first two or three āśramas, viz., that of a student, that of a householder, and that of a yati or muni. According to the Chandogya Upanishad, a man reaches the summum bonum, even in the stage of a householder."45 It seems from the above observation that the theory of the four āśramas was still incomplete in practice and perhaps no demarcation between the third and the fourth stage was possibly made as these last two stages necessarily implied the abstention from worldly activity.
Apart from the then incompleteness of the theory, some utterances in the Satapatha Brāhmaṇa46 and the Taittirīya Upanishad47 do not seem to be favourable even to the adoption by a person of sannyāsa.
41. CHI., Vol., I, p. 150. 42. Studies in Indian History and Culture, p. 3. 43. VI, 21. 44. Brh. Ar. 4. 5. 45. Har Dutta SHARMA, History of Brahmanical Asceticism, P.O., Vol. III, No. 4, p. 15. 46. XIII. 4. 1. 1: Praise of householdership. 47. I. 11. 1: Progeny must not be broken.