Jainas in History of Indian Literature

Author(s): Jinvijay
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

Page 20

[5
It is a general habit among writers on Indian literature to describe everything that is not either Buddhist or Jaina literature as "Brahma. nic". Now, I do not think, that this terminology does justice to the facts of Indian literary history. In Buddhist texts we constantly read of "Samaņas and Brāhmaṇas", just as Aśoka in his inscriptions speaks of samana-bambhana, and as Megasthenes makes a clear distinction between "Brehmanas and "Sarma'nas". This shows clearly that at least four or five centuries before Christ there were in India two distinct classes of representatives of intellectual and spiritual life. And I believe to have shown that these two classes of intellectuals have each developed a literature of their own. Even before there was such a thing as Buddhist or Jaina literature, there must have been a Samana literature besides the Brahmanic literature. Numerous traces of this Samana literature are to be found in the Epics and in the Purāņas. Its characteristic features are the following. It disregards the system of castes and aśramas; its heroes are, as a rule, not gods and Rsis, but kings or merchants or even Śūdras. The subjects of poetry taken up by it are not Brahmanic myths and legends, but popular tales, fairy stories, fables and parables. It likes to insist on the misery and sufferings of Samsara, and it teaches a morality of compassion and Ahimsa, quite distinct from the ethics of Brahmanism with its ideals of the great sacrificer and generous supporter of the priests, and its strict adherence to the caste system.
ASCETIC POETRY
""