Jaina Philosophy Historical Outline

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

Page 17

xvi Jain Philosophy in Historical Outline
supremacy, the Brāhmaṇa converts of these new creeds of the masses, because of their educational advantages, came to take the lead, and by introducing their traditional terminologies overshadowed not only the spirit of the original teachings but confused the whole thing by establishing a standard of judgement, the very existence of which was not proved and could not be proved. Just as God was included in the Aristotelian category of substance, so also the a priori doctrine of karma was introduced in the Indian systems which put an end to all scientific enquiries.
In India, to say very frankly, the speculation about the origin of things was done mostly by the Brāhmaṇas whose very existence as the leaders of society was dependent upon the maintenance of expensive rituals and ceremonies. The Upanisads contain fragmentary records of a spirit of enquiry into the origin of things, but it was mostly confined to the priestly class itself, although some Ksatriyas appear also to have participated in it. In their hand, this spirit of enquiry, instead of challenging the authority of the Vedic religion and of its ministers, the all-powerful Brāhmaṇas, constructed a speculative system which stabilised the decayed structure. The Brahman of the Upanisads is a purely a priori assumption-an unverifiable hypothesis-which inevitably blocked the way to empiricism. The challenge to priestly supremacy only came from Buddhism and Jainism which gave rise to a non-priestly class. The founders of these systems were not Brāhmaṇas, and not even Ksatriyas. This assertion may evoke sentimental criticism, but historically it is a fact. They were simple tribesmen. The Buddha came from the Sakya tribe and Mahāvīra from the Jnātṛikas. These tribes had nothing to do with the Ksatriyas. Many times the Buddha is mentioned as Vṛṣala which indicates his humble origin. It is only at a later period, probably due to the influence of the Brāhmaṇa converts into Buddhism and Jainism, that a better pedigree was claimed for the masters, and that is why they came to be treated as Ksatriyas.
In the second part of this work I have insisted on the socio-economic background which was responsible for the rise of Buddhism and Jainism and tried to present the original form of Jainism as a natural development of the spirit of man, freed from primitive ignorance and unencumbered by artificial impediments of the a priori doctrines and dogmas of metaphysics. The Buddha and Mahāvīra had to face the dual requirement of their age. On the one hand we come across the rise of new social forces and on the other the break-up of the existing