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MOKSOPĀYA IN JAIN CANONICAL LITERATURE AND
PRINCIPAL UPANISADS
Yashodhara Wadhwani Shah, Pune.
Mutual comparison and contrast of all ideas expressed in the Upanişads is, by itself, the topic of a full-fledged book ( vide my "paper published in Sambodhi 2.2, 1973). But one may note here in brief that while all texts in the Jaina canon at least have a common religious doctrine at their base, which provides sufficient ground for harmonization, such is not the case with the Up. s. They rather represent individual mystic reflections and sporadic subjective intuitions of various thinkers as a result of their search across diverse individual experiences and phenomenal forces for a common and lasting underlying substratum, if any.
As a result, we often find the teachings of different sages at variance with each other: nay, even with a single sage, his ideas may or may not have been fully crystalized and properly formulated into words, so that it becomes very difficult at times to find a certain underlying linkage or unity in his teachings.
Since this is not the case with the Jaina canon, which does present a well-formulated though complex doctrine, could this be the ground for fixing their relative chronology ? ( vide H. Jacobi, 1884, Intro., p. 22 ff ).
Well, even if it could, it need not be attempted here. For, that would involve going to the origins; and, as pointed out by Dixit ( 72:5); “ An enquiry into the origins of Jainism is a matter of much controversy and much idle speculation..” And while the writing of svetambara canons may not date earlier than the 5th century, their teachings, which started much earlier before Mahavira, could well have grown and developed side by side with those of the Up.s; not rejecting the possibility of borrowings on either side.
For, despite the basic difference that Jainism belongs to the anti-vedic Sramana cult of mendicants while Up. s. profess an allegiance to the Vedic cult of house-holders, a serious and unbiased
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