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Jaina Influence in the Formation of
Dvaita Vedanta
Robert J. Zydenbos
Jainism is still a relatively neglected subject in Western Indology, and perhaps the fact that Hindu and Buddhist literature as a rule mentions the Jainas only disparagingly and satirically has strengthened the impression with foreign researchers that the role of the Jainas in Indian cultural history was probably of little importance. The cultural and socio-political autonomy of the Jainas, who had no use for the Vedas as authoritative scriptures and hence also not for the Brahmins as a privileged social group, was no doubt in part the reason for this. However, the late Prof. Ludwig Alsdorf and Prof. Louis Dumont have established that the position of ahimsă in Indian thought as a whole and also the vegetarianism of the higher Hindu castes is mainly a Jaina achievement. In modern times the influence of Jainism in the thought of Mahatma Gandhi is very clear.
To illustrate more of the extent of Jaina influence in the development of Hindu thought, I wish to call your attention to the youngest of the three major schools of Vedanta, viz. the Dvaita-Vedanta of Madhva, Dvaita too has received little attention from modern scholars, which is hardly commensurate with its philosophical and theological sophistication and its importance in Indian intellectual history and contemporary Hinduism. In spite of excellent studies of Dvaita written by Von Glasenapp1 and Siauve, hardly any modern scholars have touched the subject; this may be due to socio-political reasons in Indian academic life, which discouraged the study of Dvaita, and to the fact that there are hardly any good translations of major Dvaiti texts in European languages. This makes a good knowledge of Sanskrit still more indispensible here than it is for the study of those schools of Indian thought that have been more 'popular' in the West, such as Advaita.
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1 H. von Glasenapp, Madhvas Philosophie des Visnu-Glaubens, Bonn /Leipzig, 1923.
2 S. Siauve, La doctrine de Madhva, Pondichery: Institut francais d'indologie, 1968.
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