Jaina Political Thought

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

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According to the traditional view, these questions cannot be answered except in terms of transcendental principles which can be known only from a tradition of a revealed knowledge or wisdom.
Four different conceptions of such a tradition may be distinguished. The Vedic tradition (Nigama) was believed to be eternal and uncreated. It was held to exist in a verbal form from beginningless times. In its orthodox form this was an indefensibly irrational view. Its philosophical version conceived the Veda as the eternal self-revealing Word or Logos. The second conception of tradition made it a revelation vouchsafed by God to a prophet. Such is the belief held by the Jews and the Muslims. For the Christians Jesus Christ himself is both God and the Man, the incarnation of the Word. The life and teachings of Jesus constitute a supernatural revelation within history. Here God and prophet are, as sources of revelation for men,no longer distinct. A similar view may be discerned in the Saiva and Vaisnava traditions. In the Saiva tradition Siva himself descends to the human plane as Srikantha, or Lakulisa etc. In the Vaisnava tradition God incarnates in human form several times.
Quite different is the conception in the Sramana tradition in its various branches. Generally they all agree in referring the tradition to the teachings of exceptional human beings who have attained supernatural knowledge by their own effort as well as the guidance they received from their spiritual predecessors. The Samkhya tradition traces itself to an original self-enlightened sage Kapila. The Buddhists trace their tradition to the Enlightened One. Later on they came to believe that individuals may become enlightened without participating in tradition but the founders of tradition appear only once in an aeon.
We have thus four different senses of tradition as an uncreated and impersonal verbal tradition, as the revelation received by prophets from God, as the Incarnation of God, and as the communication of wisdom by enlightened sages. All of these agree in so far as they regard the essential content of the tradition to lie in a wisdom which is not available to man by virtue of his natural facilities. The ideal meaning of tradition, thus, may be said to be in every case timeless and transcendental. The differences arise from the conception of the word and of God as a person.
In India the different views came to crystallize around the two basic notions of Word and Person. The Brahmanical or orthodox opinion regarded the Vedic word to constitute the original tradition or sruti, relegating the other scriptural or holy compositions to the status of smrti All that sages or humanly incarnated divine persons have said is part of smrti and derives its authority from the Veda. Nigama and Agama, Sruti and Smrti, Revealed Word and personal communication, these constitute
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