Jaina Philosophy Historical Outline

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

Page 93

72 Jain Philosophy in Historical Outline doctrines much the same as his own, and recognising his own eclipse, heleft his heritage on Gośāla and ended his own life. I
The story of Pūraņa's suicide occurs in the Dhammapada-commentaryo and the Divyāvadāna. A Tibetan version of the story also exists. According to these accounts, the death of Pūrana took at Srāvastī, after a great miracle contest in which he was worsted the Buddha. His defeat was followed by a violent storm, and he committed suicide by drowning with a pot tied around his neck. According to Basham, Pūraņa thought of committing suicide when he realised that his sun was going to set. He takes Pūraņa's death as a case of ritual suicide and refers in this connection to the Jain custom according to which an ascetic voluntarily ends his own life when his faculties begin to fail.5 But to us it appears that this sad end of Purana's career was inevitable. He committed suicide simply because he could not adjust himself with the social changes which were happening before his very eyes. The great storm which preceded Pūraņa's death reminds us of the Last Great Storm Cloud, one of the eight finalities declared by Gośāla on the eve of his death. In fact, this storm cloud was the symbol of the ruthless extermination of the existing moral values and social relations which swept away all his hopes and aspirations. The Sāmaññaphala Sutta, in which we come across the glimpses of his views, categorically suggests that he found no difference between good or bad deeds. When he says that by slaying, maiming and torturing, and causing others to be slain, maimed and tortured, a man commits no sin, there is no difficulty in understanding that the root of such comments lay in his personal experience of contemporary social life with which he could not adjust himself.
Pakudha Kaccayana
The social experiences by which Pūraņa's soul was constantly tormented and which rather forced him to commit suicide were also shared by his contemporary Pakudha Kaccāyana whose reactions were also similar. According to Pakudha, a being is composed of seven elements which are neither created, nor moulded, are barren and
HDA, pp. 80ff. 'Ed. Norman, III, pp. 199ff. Ed. Cowell and Neil, pp. 143ff. 'Rockhill, LB, p. 80. SHDA, pp. 88-90.