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V. M. Kulkarni
for his body, in fact offers the best of sacrifices and as such wins the great victory,
Where is your fire, your fire-place, your sacrificial ladle ? Where the dried cow-dung (used as fuel)? Without these things, what kind of priests can the monks be?
Penance is my fire; life my fire-place; right exertion is my sacrificial ladle; the body the dried cow-dung; karman is my fuel; self-control, right exertion and tranquility are the oblations, praised by the sages, which I offer (XII. 42-44)."'5 Taking a clue from these passages, many later Jain works dealing with dharma, mythology, philosophy and dharma-kathās denounce bloody Vedic sacrifices at length using cogent arguments. Among such works Mallisena's Syâdvādamañjari is particularly noteworthy. Its discussion, however, lies outside the scope of the present paper. Some of these works including Syadvadamañjari cite passages from śruti, smrți, the Mahābhārata, the Purāņas, as well as the views of the Sămkhyas, etc., in the course of their criticism of himsā with approval. These passages leave no doubt that there was a strong body of opinion even in Brahmanism which revolted against hinsā, even vaidha himsā (i.e. himsă prescribed in śāstras, such as animal-slaughter in a sacrifice). A.B. Dhruva maintains that “this trend of thought seems to have come down from times earlier than the rise of Jannism and Buddhism, mainly in the Bh ikti and Jňāna schools as distinguished from the ritualistic school of Brahmanism.”
The trend of thought against vaidha himsa may have been present in the period preceding the times of Mahavira and Buddha. One may however add, without any fear of contradiction, that the strong criticism of the Yajñiya hissă by the powerful advocates of ahiṁsā from the Jain and Buddhist circles must have exercised considerable influence and strengthened the trend of though that was already there and contributed to some extent to the decline of the Yajñiya himsā.
The Uttaradhyayana-sūtra criticises the following aspects of Brahmanism : : (i) The ritualism or formalism or ceremonialism as against
the self-control and the virtuous life of the ascetics, and
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