Jaina Political Thought

Author(s): G C Pandey
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

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an integral philosophy in which the socio-political order is linked to the ethico-spiritual order as hierarchical parts of a cosmology. Rooted in a universal vision, the Jaina tradition is found embedded in a specific history. In approaching it, then, one must seek to be just to its universality a to its specificity. Its philosophical integrity must be placed by the side of the deficiencies of our historical knowledge.
The state has a well-recognised duality. On the one hand, it is a system of coercive power, on the other, it is a system of moral authority. Its commands are not only backed by force but by right. In other words, it somehow spans and joins two distinct orders of being, the order of positive reality and the order of moral reality. Now the tendency of modern thought is to empahsize the former and treat the latter as somehow derivative. The empiricalstudy of behaviour is held to provide adequate knowledge for its understanding and control. Moralideas are themselves sought to be traced to psychological sources. In this situation tradition becomes irrelevant as an independent source of knowledge. Tradition is, in fact, relevant in modern thought only as a source of historical knowledge. Even historians treat it critically. Scientists look towards the future and try to follow Whitehead's advice to forget the founders of their disciplines.
The relevance of tradition, on the other hand, lies in its claim to communicate an eternally subsistent body of knowledge which lies beyond the ken of merely natural humanity and the recognition of which imposes categorical imperatives on human consciousness. In archaic, ancient and mediaeval thought political authority was, thus, held to be derivative from the traditionally communicated system of imperatives.
Competent investigators like Hockart who have examined the nature of kingship in the archaic period of humanity have shown that political power was then sought to be derived from divine power. Ritual was held to enable the king to represent symbolically and magically the majesty that belonged to the gods especially to the Sun God. Such a king was obeyed because in obeying him it was believed that one would be obeying the law given by a supernuman power. It was similarly the belief of the ancient Egyptian and Semitic societies that God is the original Soverign and that law ultimately derived from Him. On this view neither social order nor political authority can be conceived except in relation to a God-given law. In a way, this is the most fundamentalidea of the traditional theory of politics. Doubtless its abuse and perversions have made it distasteful in modern times but then just as kings have abused the power claimed on behalf of a superman law, so have dictators abused the power claimed on behalf of the people. The question really is how does power acquire moral authority? What is the ultimate nature and source of law?
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