Jaina Political Thought

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

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social rules. Their nature is to atonce allow and restrain natural behaviour. The entire corpus of pravrtti-dharma in so far it constitutes social regulation, evinces this character. Natural behaviour and ideality are here held in tension. Thus the Thanamga mentions the conflict of dharma and gana-samsthiti, of the ideal norm and the actual constitutive rule of the gana.
We have so far noticed three features of grama-dharma etc. They are instrumental (sadhana), regulative (niyama) and akin to social convention (samsthiti). Jaina tradition attributes their origin to wise leadership of which the examples were the kulkaras and the cakravartins. Just as the spiritual wisdom of the Arhants and the ganadharas is the source of sruta-dharma, the natural wisdom of primaeval chief and king is the source of socialregulation. But this source is not simply a matter of past history; it is a perpetual source of the laws actually governing social behaviour. That is why corresponding to the ten dharmas, we find the list of ten sthaviras or leaders.
The rules by which villages, towns and nations run their business have a complex origin. The Brahmanical tradition recognised a number of sources of dharma ranging from revelation to custom and mentioned the diverse dharmas of Jatis, Janapadas etc. The very recognition of ten types of dharma in the Jaina canon is evidence of its endorsement of a generally similar point of view.
Social and political rules, thus, may be understood to be the work of naturally wise and able leaders and to be of the nature of a regulation of instinctive behaviour in the interest of moral and spiritual life. From the mahavratas follow the anuvratas and for their realization the fabric of dharma political life provides a substratum, that is why the jambudvipa pannatti says that moral and religious practice is more fragile than the common fabric of social life! That virtue is destroyed earlier in point of time than mere social survival, is only another way of putting the Aristotelian dictum that society arising for the sake of life continues for the sake of good life.
It is worth noticing that rastradharma or the 'law of the kingdom' is not treated here asthesolesourceor body of law. The reference to the laws of villages and towns suggests that they enjoyed a substantial degree of autonomy, a fact which conforms to what we know of that ancient period from other sources. The later commentaries as well as inscriptions also tell us about the active role of popular councils in running village and town administration. The expression rastradharma may be held similar to the Brahmanical rajadharma which meant the duties of the king. Now the prime duty of the king was to maintain dharma itself, i.e., the general
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