Jainism

Author(s): N R Guseva
Publisher: Sindu Publications P L

Page 36

JAINISM
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earth. The first three positions are related to the prescriptions to spare other's life and cannot be agreeable with the Aryan prescriptions of innumerable sacrifices. That is why they are apparently borrowed by the later Brahmanism from non-Vedic fạiths and it means that they are hardly brought into Jainism by the Aryans. It is possible that only the last one out of the four positions constituted a contribution by the Aryans to reformative faiths, since this position reminds us of the Aryan tradition of succession by word of mouth of geneological birth and tracing of their births to prophets and great grand-parents.
It is possible that the prominent contribution of Aryans to the rise of these faiths consists in that after having moved forward along India and having come in contact with its various peoples, they played the role of collectors of their traditions and carried to the eastern Gangetic regions many cult elements and ethical prescriptions, which came later in Jainism, Buddhism and other religions. : According to legends of the Jains, their religion in ancient times had spread over the whole of India, and all of them were Kshatriyas. According to another legend, Devananda, a Brahmin woman should have given birth to Mahavir Jina (founder of Jainism in that form in which this religion has come down to us), but the embryo had been transferred to the bosom of Trisala, a Kshatriya woman, since Mahavir was not to receive life from Brahmins or from the members of the lower castes. (Can there be anything more characteristic in India than showing repulsion towards Brahmins?)
Research scholars of the philosophy of Hinduism emphasise .that it was precisely Kshatriyas who introduced in this philosophy the conceptions known by the name of atmavidya and mokshadharma. According to the first incept the place of
3. F. Bushanan, Particulars of the Jains, During Travels in Canara; N. T. Colebrooke, Miscellaneous Essays, p. 402 (Colebrooke also informs that the Jains who leave their religion are accepted in various castes of Kshatriyas of the Indian community, which could not have happened if the fact that they belonged originally to this caste was not generally ktown); 1. Minayev, Information About the Jains and Buddhists.
4. H. Jacobi, Jaina Sutras, Part I, Introduction, p. XXXI. 5. N. Munni, Philosophy of Soul is the Gift of Kshatriyas to Indian Thought, pp. 180-81.