Jaina Political Thought

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

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the Cakravartin and knowing the secret of niti and dharma, composed the four Pure Vedas (Arya-Vedas) for the maintenance of the world-order so that all the people could acquire skill in realizing for themselves the human ends. In course of time, however, the original Vedas were lost and corrupted by himsa etc. and seized by people with false beliefs. As a result the good people (Aryas) abandoned the old texts. New works were composed by ancient masters and they still survive and people still conduct their social practice on their basis. Such was the origin of the tradition of political science.
This account asserts the existence of an ancient treatise recording the instructions of Mahavira to Srenika. That treatise is said to have asserted the currency of earlier works on polity which had replaced the still earlier tradition of the original Vedas after they had become corrupted. These original Vedas were the work of Bharata who had followed Rsabha. Now the historicity of Bharata and Rsabha is as unproved as the existence of a purer form of the Vedas. It follows, then, that the account of the origin of Rajaniti contained in the Brahadarhanniti was legendary or Puranic in any other but he could not think of ruling without the instruments of force.
The rulers whom Hemacandra sought to advise were no Asokas. Jayasimha was not even a Jaina and although Kumarapala did become a Jaina, he did not totally relinquish his interest in Saivism. Hemacandra says that he composed his work on niti at the insistence of king Kumarapala. He claims to have relied on an ancient sastra called Arhanniti to which he refers occasionally and which he even quotes at places. From these references and quotations this work seems to have been real, and written in Prakrta. We are told that once king Srenika asked Lord Mahavira outside Rajagrha about rajaniti "who revealed it first, how many varieties does it have, what is its real nature ?" To these questions the answer of the Lord was that in the past age Rsabha became the first king. At that time on account of the influence of the epoch the wish-trees had become extinct and the people of the Bharata country were committed to conflicts and fraudulent ways (Kalicchadma-Darayanah). Out of compassion Bharata rescinded the ancient ethos (dharma) of the people who used to be born as pairs Instead he founded the division of varnas and asramas, the prescriptions of personal rites (samskaras), the method for the practice of agriculture, commerce, crafts etc., the path of niti for the rulers, settelments of towns and ports, all the sciences and practical ways of life, worldly as well as other-worldly. All these were revealed by the Lord for the welfare of the people. His son Bharata followed the instructions of his father and acquiring the Nine Treasures of
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