Jaina Political Thought

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

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to altered modes of interaction and organisation, culminiating in the institution of the coercive authority of the state. Unlike the Buddhist suttas the early Jaina canonical texts do not contain any clear or explicit account of such a theory of the origin of the state. It is, however, not unlikely that such a theory was not unknown to them. The incidental references to timeperiods and mythical or legendary empires of the past and to types of dandaniti in the Thananga, for example, suggest such a conclusion. It is true that this particular text being a list of terms was easily amenable to later additions and interpolations and one cannot argue for the antiquity of everything found in it. Nevertheless, while the details of the evolution of society and state may belong to the post-canonical period, there is no doubt that the Jainas like the Buddhists drew upon an ancient mythical and cosmographic tradition with which historical legends were also mixed up in course of time. Such a tradition formed the basis of later Puranic accounts, Brahmanical as well as Jaina. The extant Puranic literature is late but it is undoubted that there was an ancient Puranic literature which existed side by side with Vedic literature.The basis of the references in the Jaina canon is likely to lie in this ancient tradition of which the details cannot now be ascertained.
In any case, it does seem that the idea of attributing the origin of coercive power in society to the fallen nature of man, is an ancient one and even though unproved to be an original principle of early Jaina teaching, it appears to have been generally acceptable to it. The important thing is that the general idea of the connection of evil, anarchy and sovereignty was differently interpreted and intergrated in the different traditions.
The Jainas believed that the soul is by nature pure and perfect but owing to the force of delusion, passions and karman incarnates and undergoes samsara' It follows that the spiritual fall which is presupposed by human nature is transcendental, not temporal. Possibly it is this ideal fall to which the myth originally refers, though the memory of transition from primitive simplicity and its 'moral order' to the 'order of civilization' could also have been compounded with the essential idea in the course of its mythical representation. Despite its ideal fall the soul in its human incarnation, is not wholly subject to evil. It is undoubtedly subject to the force of passions but it is also endowed with reason and free will. What is more, the tradition of spiritual knowledge cannot be said to be unavailable to it, the absence of the state does not imply an absolute absence of society, leadership or spiritual enlightenment. Good and evil, reason and passion struggle in human nature and it will be a wholly one-sided exaggeration to paint the natural condition of man as one of ruthless anarchy redeemable only by soverign power. The fact is that while the state along with other
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