Jaina Philosophy Historical Outline

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

Page 74

The Incipient Stage 53 by the supporters of anti-Vedism. In this connection we may refer to the Yaksas, Rakṣas and Nāgas, the pre-Vedic divinities,' whose cults were revived by the followers of Buddhism and Jainism.
Here we may take a very interesting example. In the epics and Purāņas in which the Vedic religious and cultural traditions are zealously upheld, the Rākṣasas are depicted as terrible beings and dangerous enemies, regarded as the embodiment of all evil and treated with much opprobrium and insult. But the very term by which they were designated has a different significance. The root rakṣa from which the term Rākṣasa has been derived denotes a protector. Thus the Rākṣasa is one who protects. Were they the protectors of the indigenous beliefs, cults and rituals from the encroaching hands of an alien religious system? The facts about their material culture and social institutions, their religious beliefs and practices, their adherence to certain moral values and the favours and privileges they used to obtain from the non-Vedic Śiva and Devi, as we find in these texts, obviously lead us to such a conclusion. The most striking fact about their activiteis is that they were opposed to the sacrificial religion of the Vedas. In every case we find them destroying the Vedic sacrifices and creating havoc among their participants. They did not even hesitate to kill the sages. When Ghatotkaca, the son of Bhima by a Rākṣasi, sacrificed his life in favour of the Pandavas in the Bharata war, Kṛṣua, the friend, philosopher and guide of the Pāṇḍavas, did not hide his feeling of joy. He was so pleased and excited that he began to dance like an irresponsible person, although Ghatotkaca was the son of his friend. When Kṛṣṇa was questioned about this unseemly behaviour, he categorically replied that he was indeed happy because Ghatotkaca, though begotten by his friend, was basically a Rākṣasa, and as such was a great enemy of the Vedic way of life and of the sacrificial cult. It is therefore evident that such declared enemies must receive an honourable position in the anti-Vedic systems like Buddhism or Jainism.
The cult of the primitive Mother Goddesses was also revived in the Buddhist and Jain pantheon for the same reason. The popularity of these goddesses among the agricultural peoples and that of the rituals by which they were characterised-the so-called primitive Tantric
1See Coomaraswamy, Y.
'Mbh., VII pp. 180-81, P.C. Ray's Eng. tr. pp. 421-24. 'See my HSR, pp. 38-42, 45-47, 65-68, 90-92, 114,