Jaina Political Thought

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

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which repudiates the ancient Brahmanical as well as the naturalistic or modern points of view. The Brahmanical view traces civilization to a timeless divine revelation, the Veda. The modern view makes civilization a natural and historical human achievement. For the Jaina view civilization depends on the guidance of specially enlightened human individuals and the tradition of wisdom established by them. Wisdom is perennial but it is realised in spiritual inwardness individually and the persons who attain such realization guide others. They are also the source of that moral wisdom which holds together society. It is true that the person who has reached spiritual perfection does not give instruction in secular wisdom. nevertheless, at an earlier stage such great men do enlighten the world in secular arts and sciences.
While maintaining a distinction between the spiritual teacher and the temporal ruler and a corresponding distinction between the sadhusangha and the sravaka sangha, this view seeks an ideal coordination between secular life and spiritual life, thereby admitting the state at a certain place in the scheme of ideal life and treating it as more than necessary evil. Governed by and serving passions, the state may indeed be largely evil but it can be enlightened and just and promote the ideal life of the spirit. In the Puranas, thus, we find an attempt to delineate the ideal state under Rsabha and Bharata.
There are two aspects of this account. One is the expression of the foundational aspects of political life. The other is an expression of what was regarded as the ideal organization and policy of the state. The former aspect relates to some basic traditions coming down from the past. The latter represents in all obviousness the views which were current in the days of the authors of the Puranas.
Turning to the fundamentals of the Puranic tradition relating to the origin of the political order,we may note that this origin is described in terms of a gradual process extending over a long period ranging from the first patriarch to the first king Technically this is the process of the emergence of dandaniti in its seven phases. It may be recalled that the Kulakaras and the forms of dandaniti find mention in the Agama and are also detailed in the Avasyka-niryukti. Their tradition certainly precedes the composition of the classical Puranas.
This process of the emergence of the state is made to depend on two basic conditions which interact fruitfully. The first condition is the existence of a wise leader and law-giver in society whose advice people seek and follow. The second condition is the decreasing bounty of nature producing the scarcity of goods and consequent possibility of conflict. Scarcity leads to the need of toil on the one hand and on the other to the need of common
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