Jaina Philosophy Historical Outline

Author(s): Narendra Nath Bhattacharya
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publisher's Pvt Ltd New Delhi

Page 105

84 Jain Philosophy in Historical Outline
The Social Basis of Jain Ethics
We have elsewhere argued that the material cause of the disintegration of tribal society and the rise of the new social forces and econo. mic classes did not escape the notice of the Buddha and Mahāvīra. They had to face the dual requirement of their age. That is why, on the one hand, they had to offer to the oppressed peoples of their times a suitable illusion of ancient tribal communism which was getting trampled and undermined in reality and, on the other hand to boost up some of the progressive features of the already established class society in public life and rescue some of the beneficial aspects of tribal life in a class society. Both of these great teachers established the Samgha or 'community of brethren' which was evidently modelled on the pattern of tribal democracies and meant to be the ideal substitute for a vanished way of life. They took great care to see that the members of the order, the monks or nuns, would live a perfectly detached life, i.e., detached from the great historic transformation going on in the society at large, whose course was obviously beyond their power to change.
How thoroughly the pre-class tribal model was initated by Mahāvīra in building up the 'community of brethren' can be understood if we take into account the Jain rules relating to the procedure of entry into the order, the internal administration of the order and the role of personal or private property within the order. In fact, the Jain texts are burdened with the rules relating to life of the monks. From these rules, which are by nature very rigid, there is no difficulty in understanding that there was perfect communism among the members of the Jain order. Everything was managed democratically by the monks and there was no such thing as private property within the order. The Jain monks were forbidden (and even to this day they are) to have anything which they could call their own. This is the vow of aparigraha originally enunciated by Pārsva. According to Mahāvira, this should include not only the non-attachment to all sorts of property but also the non-attachment to all connected with the five organs of senses. Even those things which the Jain monk always carried about himself as clothes, alms-bowl, broom, etc. were not regarded as his property, but as things necessary for the exercise of religious duties (dharmopakarana).
“ 'I shall become a Sramaņa who owns no house, no property, no
1 Āyara, II. 15.5; SBE, XXII, pp. 208-10.