Jain Journal 1968 07

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 50

JAINA ETHICS AND ECONOMIC PROSPERITY
S. L. MANDAWAT
The role of institutions in the process of economic growth and the overall prosperity of the masses is very substantial. These institutional arrangements often stand in the way of a more rational use of available resources and they may well offer the main explanation for the slow rate of economic development of the under-developed economies. Such discouragingly slow progress often supports Veblen's position that institutionalized traditions may 'contaminate' socio-economic reforms and prevent them from attaining full fruition. Professor Rostow has suggested that 'actions which result in economic advance need not be motivated by economic goals'. Religion is of immense importance among all other social institutions which can restrict or promote the economic interest of a nation in general and a community in particular.
Scholars generally hold the view that Jainism like Buddhism was born of discontent and hatred against Brahmanism. The fact, however, remains that the orthodox Brahmins were not so hostile to Jainism as they had been towards Buddhism. The Upanisadic phase ended around 600 B.C. and a new phase of Hinduism came into the lime-light and this is also the time of the appearance of two great personages: Mahavira and the Buddha. The traditional pattern of religion and the social abuses indulged in by the ritual-ridden Brahmanism of the later Vedic phase gave Mahavira chance to introduce certain reforms. Jainism rejected all orthodox philosophies, not only the Vedantic but also the Samkhya doctrine. As a result, here is a system, viz., Jainism, perfectly original and indigenous to the soil, which has a rich, vast and multifarious literature and yet which is virtually neglected in any assembly of scholars in Economics. In our context the importance of Jainism is due to the fact that it is a specifically merchant sect as exclusive, or even more exclusive than the Jews were in the Occident. Thus here we meet apparently with a positive relationship of a confession to economic motivation which is otherwise quite foreign in Hinduism.1
In contrast to Buddhism, Jainism accepted the dogmas of the transmigration of soul, the supreme law of karma and seeks for deliverance from the endless succession of rebirth. However it bypassed the Brahmanic concept of the divine soul of the Universe. A study of the