Idea of Ahimsa and Asceticism in Ancient Indian Tradition

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

Page 31

22
THE IDEA OF AHMSA ....
identification of these qualities with daksinas in the moral teachings of Ghora implies "varieties of self-denial". The tapas causes the body emaciated. It is an act of giving one's own physical substance, - an offering of the diksita. Speaking the truth is a severe self-restraint. The diksita has to speak the truth in vedic sacrifices, since it leads him to the world of the gods (cf. Rgveda 7.86.6; SB. 1.1.1). The ahimsa saves life of the living beings, and the diksita has to observe carefully the practice of a himsa, since it is a natural tendency of injuring the living beings and to live on their flesh. The belief that the living being which is killed in the sacrifice is healed and restored to life and joins the gods by magical means, - this belief has been totally discarded in this moral teaching, and the ahimsa - non injury to any living being - achieved a place in the ethical sphere as a principle of morality Ghora has yet not involved in his teachings, the karma doctrine, the atman theory, and it appears that the textual portions dealing with Ghora's teachings in the Ch. Up. belong to earlier strata. An impact of the Rgveda (8.6.30 and 1.50.10) quoted in it in support of the teachings, is clearly evident. Ghora believed that a man without any "desire", is released from the death by seeing in himself, i.e. comprehending on the eve of his death, that he is the light imperishable, immovable, and that it is fixed upon the vital airs (cf. Ch. Up. 3.17.6). Here it is difficult to decide about an exact state of the released soul after the man's death. If it lies in the realm of the light of the primeval seed ... beyond the sky and the sun ...", then Ghora's teachings may be assigned to a period before Parsva (ca. 5th or 6th cent. B. C.) and the Mahavira (the founder of Jainism, ca. 4th cent. B. C.) who also believed in a similar state of the released individual soulii.
(g) vanaprasthas :
The problem of deciding the origin and development of the va naprastha mode of life in the early Vedic texts is also beset with difficulties. Ludwik Skurzak (Skurzak-2) has studied the problem by analysing various layers in the #pastamba-DharmaSatra. He showed the rules for the vanaprasthas in ADS 2.9.21.
11. Cf. Schmidt-1 pp.653 fol.; for the state of the released soul in
Jainism, see Doctrine. S 129; for the renunciatory ideology of Ghora akin to thet of the Brahmanism, see further Schmidt-1 p. 654; for an influence of Ghora's teachings on the karma doctrine in Buddhism, cf. F.Edgerton: Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 8. Poona 1927, pp. 219-249 noted by Schmidt-1 pp.657 fol., fn.6; cf. also Della-Casa. pp.194 fol.