Jaina Philosophy Historical Outline

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

Page 80

The Incipient Stage 59 forces and economic classes and the growth of states on the ruins of the pre-class tribal equality did not escape the notice of the Buddha and Mahāvīra. They had to face the dual requirements of their age and had to act practically as the unconscious tools of history. 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, 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.
Material Basis of the Great Intellectual Movement
A.L. Basham while dealing with the history of the Ajivikas suggested that the doctrines of Gośāla, Pūraṇa and Pakudha were aspects of a single body of teaching. To us it, however, appears that this holds good in the case of all of their contemporaries, including the Buddha and Mahāvīra. Specifically their views may be different, but generically they belong to the same category. It was due to the fact that the Buddha, Mahāvīra and their contemporaries belonged to the same age and the same region and they responded and reacted, in their own ways, which were more or less similar, to the same stimuli arising out of the stupendous socio-political transformation which was taking place in eastern India in their time.
The Buddha and Mahavira were born in an age when the janapadas (tribal settlements) were developing into mahā-janapadas (bigger confederacies) leading to the rise of organised states. Already four mahā-janapadas became distinguished as powerful states, and the forces behind the subsequent Magadhan imperialism could be seen. Mahavira, as we have seen above, was known as Veśālie (Vaiśālīya).2 Vaiśāli was a tribal settlement belonging to a confederation of tribes collectively known by the name of the Vajjis. Mahāvira's maternal uncle, Cetaka was the leader of this Vajjian confederacy. The rise of Magadhan state power was really a natural threat to the survival of this Vajjian confederacy of tribes. The growth of Magadhan state power required annihilation of many a tribal settlement. Bimbisāra, the first powerful Magadhan king who was a senior contemporary of the Buddha and Mahāvīra, did not hesitate to annex the settlements of
1HDA, p. 18. 'Uttara, VI, 17.