Jain Journal 1973 10

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

Page 32

OCTOBER, 1973
Manu has elaborated in the Manusmrti25. The comparison which Jinasena has made between the cowherd and the king is worked out by him in a detailed manner in the Adipurāna26. We may just comment on two ideas which Jinasena has elucidated in this connection. The first refers to the king's cherishing his hereditary troops, and the second to the king's strengthening himself within the sprere of the circle of states. As regards the hereditary troops and the need to maintain them, Jinasena obviously had Kautilya in mind, for the latter had similar înjunctions to give in regard to hereditary troops 27. The king's last obligations, according to Jinasena, was the preservation of property. That Jinasena could not free himself from the earlier Indian idea of punishment is clear when he states that the king should cherish the good, who lived according to their respective occupations, and punish the wicked, who committed crime28. This principle had earlier been enunciated in the Manusmrti29.
The Jaina version of the origin of society and of punishment was similar and dissimilar to the Hindu concept of danda as given in the Dharmaśāstras and repeated in the Purānas and the epics. Both the Jainas and the Hindus conceived of an earlier age in the life of man when the conditions of existence were of prestine glory that did not require the aid of any monarch. In this the Jainas were more explicit than the Hindus about the idyllic condition of society. Both the Hindus and the Jainas attribute the institution of punishment to the growing rapacity of men, and to the consequent tendency of the strong to devour the weak as exemplified in the proverb of the fishes. But the difference between the Hindu and the Jaina theories lies in this the Jainas eliminated the divine creation of institutions, and attributed their growth to the changes in the environment in which men lived 30 Secondly, unlike the Hindu theorists, who considered economic and political institutions as connoted by the terms varta and dandanīti, to be essential to the advancement of mankind, the Jainas did not consider either political or economic institutions as being necessary for securing happiness. According to them, progress could be achieved without all the appurtenances of civilization 31. The aeons of perfect happiness referred to above, were
25 Manu, VIII, 126-130. p. 276.
Read Ghoshal, op. cit., pp. 465-467 for an elaborate discription of this question. 27 Kautilya, Bk. VI, Ch. I, 258, p. 288; text, p. 258, p. 288; Bk. VII, Ch. VIII, 288,
p. 317 ; text p. 288. 28 For a full account of Jinasena's view, read Ghoshal, ibid, pp. 465-466. 29 Manu, VII, 13-34, pp. 218-221, etc.
Beni Prasad, op. cit., p. 224. 31 Beni Prasad, ibid.