Jaina Philosophy Historical Outline

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

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62 Jain Philosophy in Historical Outline internal administration of the Order, and the personal or private property within the Order. The head of the Jain Samgha was known as Ganadhara, 'he who holds the tribes.' In building up his own Samgha on the model of pre-class society Mahāvīra, like the Buddha, took great care to see that the members therein 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. This explains why Mahāvīra believed in action but the purpose of which was to get rid of all actions, Every action, according to him, produces karma, and thus entails on the doer the continuance of worldly existence. To get rid of all karma being the highest goal, what is therefore required is to annihilate the existing karma and to prevent the formation of new karma, technically speaking to stop the influx (āsrava) of karma, which is called samvara or the covering of the channels through which karma finds entrance into the soul. The true significance of this complex idea is not now difficult to understand. According to Mahāvīra, when a man is free from passions and acts in strict compliance with the rules of right conduct, the actions thus produced lasts but for a moment, and is then annihilated. As regards the Jain rules of right conduct, Mahāvīra followed his predecessor Pārsva who spoke of four Vratas--not to kill, not to lie, not to steal and not to be interested in worldly things like property-to which he added a fifth, viz. not to be indulged in sensual pleasure. The four rules of right conduct, prescribed by Pārśva, were simply the moral values of tribal society which were ruthlessly undermined in the age of the Buddha and Mahāvira.
The Conflicts in the History of Indian Thought
In view of what we have said above it has become quite clear that the origin of Buddhism and Jainism cannot be ascribed to any single cause, though the material milieu of their growth can be understood. The real cause of their rise evidently lay in the conflicts-political, economic, social, religious and intellectual—which had characterised the pre-Buddhist and pre-Jain history of India.
What was the nature of such conflicts, the ultimate culmination of which was manifested in Jainism and Buddhism in the form of a great qualitative change? As we have hinted above, in our known history of India, the first conflict was between the Vedic and non-Vedic elements, the former representing a predominantly pastoral culture, and the latter, a predominantly agricultural. These two streams had also