Idea of Ahimsa and Asceticism in Ancient Indian Tradition

Author(s): Bansidhar Bhatt
Publisher: B J Institute

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THE IDEA OF AHMSĂ ...
from the existing non-Aryan cultures and were ultimately inte. grated in the Aryan way of life, i.e. in the later four-fold aśramasystem, and the ahimsa which was originally an element of the non-Aryan cultures, was also integrated into the framework of the Aryan life in India (cf. Schmidt-1 p.651). Consequently, many doctrines of the non-Aryan ascetic philosophy are assimilated into the Brahmanical philosophy, e.g. the karma of any type binds the soul and offers no freedom whatsoever. It results in the transmigration of the soul (metem-psychosis). Therefore, a man aspires after the emancipation, and desires to deliver himself from this evil by renouncing the vicissitudes of the karmic world, and living a life of an ascetic according to the doctrine of ahimsa”.
The Vedic texts abound in descriptions of rituals which are mainly centred around householder's life, but these texts hardly show any interest in describing other modes of life, i.e. other than the mode of life of householders. However, we can collect some data of different modes of life indirectly from the description of the life of Vedic students-brahmacarins - who sometime, without living a householder's life, wish to adopt other mode of life, whose essential characteristics are similar to those through which the sacrificer has to pass in the rituals (cf. Olivelle-2 pp.79 fol.,81). J.C. Heesterman studied the ritual literature from this particular angle and traced origin of the three aśramas, viz. brahmacarya, vanaprastha, and samnya sa from within the ritual structures of Vedic literature (cf. Wezler-1 pp. 110 fol.).
Since the ahimsa doctrine played an important part in the renouncer's mode of life, we describe in short in the following paragraphs how the recent studies of the problem of the asramas vis-a-vis a himsa arrived at a certain conclusion.
For the Vedic Aryans, ritual and the brahmin priest, both are pure. Person wishing to get himself rid of the evil of death and to be reborn pure out of the sacrifice, has to perform a sacrifice which is the only means of purifying his self. He has, therefore, to undergo initially a particular ceremony called diksa, so that he gets himself entitled for the sacrificial ritual.
5. For views that asceticism comes from the non-Aryan sources, the
reader is referred to: Winternitz-1; Skurzak-1; Olivelle-2; and "Entwicklung und Theorie der Aśrama-Lehre" by F. Weinrich (Arch. f. Rel.-wiss. 27, 1929), 'Die vier indischen Aśramas" by B. Liebich (Breslau 1936).