Jaina Philosophy Historical Outline

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

Page 187

PART FOUR
A COMPARATIVE STUDY
Jainism and Vedic Tradition
B
UDDHISM and Jainism, as is known to all, are by nature antiVedic. In the Vedic tradition itself, recorded in the Brahmanical compositions, both these systems are classed as belonging to the Nastika group. Both these systems were originated among peoples living outside the pale of rigid Brahmanical influence. Both these systems are marked by a strong aversion against the taking of animal life, against the doctrine of offering animals at the sacrifices and against the sacrificial cult itself. Both these systems reject the authority of the Vedas and the supremacy of the Brahmaņas. "The main departure of the systems of Jainism and Buddhism from the sacrificial creed consisted in this, that they tried to formulate a theory of the universe, the reality and the position of sentient beings and more particulary of man. The sacrificial creed was busy with individual rituals and sacrifices, and cared for principles or maxims only so far as they were of use for the actual performances of sacrifices."'1
Although Jainism and Buddhism appear to have arisen out of a reaction against the sacrificial disciplines of the Brāhmaṇas, they could not but be influenced by some of the fundamental principles which had already found some sort of expression in the Vedic texts, especially in the earlier Upanisads. The sum and substance of the teaching of the Upanisads is involved in the equation of Atman and Brahman, the individual soul and the universal soul. Brahman is the ultimate essence of the universe while Atman the inmost essence of man. The universe is in Brahman but the Brahman is in Atman. The following passages of the Chandogya Upaniṣad will explain the whole thing. "The self (Atman) which is free from sin, free from old age, from death and grief, from hunger and thirst, whose desires are true, whose cognitions are true, that is to be searched for, that is to
1Dasgupta, HIP, I, p. 210.