Jaina Political Thought

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

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rules for safeguarding the rights of each. Under rudimentary conditions this safeguarding was achieved by organised social opinions to which belonged the first three forms of dandaniti We have here the picture of a perfectly peaceful clan under a wise Patriarch where there is as yet no division of labour, property rights are rudimentary and the collective opinion of the clan carries enough force to maintain the harmony of the clan against occasional tendencies of disruption. It was a condition when disputes were peacefully settled by common consensus. The state certainly existed but there was neither the violence of punishment nor that of war.
The division of labour leading to social differentiation and the emergence of more elaborate forms of economic life, property and settlements constituted a complex of changes which accompanied the emergence of a new kind of polity called kingship or empire. Modern historical research holds that ancient empires arose from the settlement of clans and the processes of their breakdown accompanied by conquest. Economic processes especially the growing division of labour and the consequent growth of exchange relations played an important part just as social differentiation in terms of power and property did. In short,modern research suggests that the transition from clan patriarchate to territorial kingship and empire was mediated by economic changes and the use of force. Generally speaking,it would be reasonable to hold that the division of labour, differentiation of property, and the organisation of coercive power constitute three moments of the abstract structure underlying the sociopolitical process leading to emergence of sovereign authority. On the Jaina view, however, while the developmental process is similar in its stages, it is throughout a guided and rational process which culminates in kingship. In this respect the Jaina view may be said to present a logical simplification rather than the circumstantial account of historical changes. What is more, it seems to convert immanent social reason into one semi-divine figure. Its principal difference from the modern view, however, lies in the fact that its notion of guided change eliminates the violence and conflicts of actual historical changes. In this sense the Jaina view may be said to visualize the emergence of sovereignty in an idealized manner.
It points out the logical factors involved viz., the presence of law-giving wisdom as well as the stimulus of economic development. From a realistic and historical point of view the role of wisdom appears to be exaggerated and the role of dialectically constructive force underestimated. The Jaina theory in fact does not recognise what Hegel called the cunning of reason.
Let us briefly recount the Puranic description of the transition of mankind from primaeval innocence to the political order based on coercion.
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