Jain Journal 1975 04

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

Page 8

Social and Religious Conditions in Bhagavan Mahavira's Times
Bhagavan Mahavira was the last in the series of twenty-four Tirthankaras or Jinas of the Sramana tradition. He attained Nirvana in 527 B.C., at the age of seventy-two, thus living in the sixth century before the birth of Jesus Christ, an epoch-making age which is of tremendous significance in the history of mankind. The atmosphere of almost the entire civilized world was surcharged with an unprecedented intellectual awakening, speculative thinking and emotional fervour. A new era was being ushered in.
JYOTI PRASAD JAIN
In Greece, the Ionian philosophers were debating about the primordial constitutive principle of the universe and the great Pythagoras gave to the world his Doctrine of Harmony. China, in the same age, produced two very great men, Laotzu and Confucius; the former wrote his Book of Nature, the greatest classics of Taoism, and the latter propounded his celebrated Golden Rule. In Persia, Zoroaster contributed the doctrine of the conflict between the forces of Light and Darkness, and in Mesopotamia, the prophet Moses was leading his flock back of Jehovah. India itself, in that period, saw the rise of, not one or two but dozens of, eminent thinkers, religious reformers and founders of philosophical systems.
As a matter of fact, for the Indian society, it was in many ways a period of transition, and the transformations that had begun taking place in the political, economic, social and religious spheres, had a far-reaching impact.
The Mahabharata War and the subsequent internecine warfare had dealt a shattering blow to the hegemony of the Vedic Ksatriyas, and their place was now being gradually taken by the scions of some of the surviving pre-Aryan regal families. The orthodox Vedicists considered them outside the pale and used for them derogatory terms like Ksatrabandhu and Vratya-Ksatriya, probably because most of these peoples were followers of the Sramanas. The kings of Magadha and the many