Jaina Acara Siddhanta aur Svarupa

Author(s): Devendramuni
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

Page 15

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FOREWORD
India is the cradle of philosophies and the arena of systems of conduct. A variety of philosophies have evolved here at different times. Many of them flourished whereas some others could not sustain the cruel blows of time. As mentioned in Jaina tradition, there were three hundred and sixty-three schools of philosophy during Mahavira's time. The Buddha has mentioned sixty-three schools only. Many of these laid emphasis on practices but others did not. Many were based on the absence of rational thought and some others gave importance to humility and reverence. There were as many systems of conduct as were the schools of philosophy. With the differences of opinion between the various schools it was natural for disputes to arise among the systems of conduct. There were many fundamental rules that were uniformly acceptable to almost all philosophical schools. However, it is an established fact that some schools neglected some particular subject, beleving it to be unimportant, whereas some other schools elaborated it believing it to be the most important. Thus a variety of different traditions of conduct sparkled and faded with the passage of time.
In this work I have presented a comparative study of the Jaina conduct. Conduct is the central theme of Jaina philosophy and its whole religious edifice has been built around it. If we conduct a study of all the philosophical schools currently active, it becomes evident that the emphasis given to conduct by the Jaina philosophy is missing from all other schools. An example at hand is the Yoga Philosopy. Acarya Patanjali, the guiding angel of the Yoga Philosophy bas provided analytical details about conduct; but no other school from Vedic philosophy could do that much. In the beginning, Acarya Patanjali has classified Ahisma, truth, non-stealing, celibacy, and non-possession as Yama, but later on he has mentioned these as great vows. The Jaina philosophy also classifies these virtues as great vows. However, it should be kept in mind that Patanjali has indicated that Yama is a superficial or ritual step in yoga not a seminal one. The steps, as postulated by Patanjali, are Dhyāna (meditation), Dhāranā (deep concentration), and Samadhi (union with the goal). It is true that Patanjali had no intention of devaluing the importance of Yama. Later, others rejected Yama and Niyama and included only Dhyana, Dhārana, Samadhi, Pranayama (control over breathing), Pratyahāra (withdrawl), and Tarka (logic). Patanjali had never included Tarka in yoga but the later Acāryas