Jainism

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

Page 68

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JAINISM
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two types of religious-ritual practice came into being in case of every Jain. Those types were 'Laukika' (worldly), practical and 'Paralaukika' (only for the soul). Not only pilgrimage, but also productive activity formed part of the Laukika.
It is difficult to say whether there was common profession for all the members of the ancient Jain community. All the tasks connected with the destruction of living beings or with causing harm to them were considered as prohibited. That is why Jains reject for example, agriculture, assuming that while ploughing fields, one caused harm to various living beings. But precisely in which period Jains rejected agriculture is not known. Evidently this religious teaching, mainly spread in the environments of cities even in ancient times.
In Karnataka, there existed only one caste called 'Chaturtha' amongst the Jains. This caste is engaged in agriculture. This might call forth the suggestion that members of some strong agricultural caste of a given locality sometime adopted Jainism and continued to engage themselves with agriculture because it was difficult for numerically big groups of people to change the profession in a short time and to settle in the towns for the occupation of trade or usury.
Proceeding from the fact that the activity of trading and usury is the traditional occupation of the Jains in the course of many centuries, it is possible to assume that Jains concentrated on this occupation all their efforts in the period of the blossoming of feudalism. If the Jain-monks lived in the monasteries and cloisters outside the cities, then the Jain-laymen were mainly concentrated in cities. Evidently, the high degree of their influence on many rulers can be explained precisely by the fact that they granted big loans and financed one or another enterprise.
The epoch of early feudalism, development of handicrafts and trade must have objectively facilitated the consolidation of Jainism and helped it to withstand the blows from the side of Hinduism.
Already in the Gupta epoch, many cities (Mathura, Vallabhi, Pundravardhana, Udayagiri, Mysore, Kanchi and others, in
8. 9.
Ibid., pp. 406-407. Ibid., p. 106.