Jainism

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

Page 69

DEVELOPMENT OF JAINISM OUTSIDE BIHAR 55
which handicrafts and trade flourished) were well known as big centres of Jainism. In the year 453 A.D., an all-Jain synod was convened in the city of Vallabhi for amending and fixing canonical texts. This testifies to the fact that this religion had consolidated itself in the early Middle Ages and it had spread in south and west India. During this period, many commentaries on these texts were written, forming a great section of Jain literature.
However, development of feudalism (and in the sphere of ideology the process of formation of Hinduism) was inseparable from the development and consolidation of caste structure. The Jain community adopted this feature of social-economical and ideological life of India and gradually castes, adopting many restrictions and prohibitions, which existed in Hindu castes took shape in Jainism also.
The ability of the Jain community to adopt to changing historical conditions can be explained by the well known liberalism of Jain canon and the entire structure of the community Jain preachers did not oppose changes, which time introduced in the organization of the community. As also in antiquity, the community did not shut its door to anybody.
The significant reason for the formation of Jain castes in this period was the mass conversion of Hindus to Jainism in those states, the rulers of which, gave patronage to the Jain community or themselves became Jains. These newly converted preserved within the framework of the new religion their previous tenor of life, based on caste-structure.
The division of the community into castes, finally taking place mainly in the thirteenth-fifteenth centuries added to the division into four varnas, which had already originated in the ancient in Bihar) period of development of Jainism. Jain castes proper arose in the main according to the local
cations—according to the place of settlement of one or another group of Jains. This is corroborated by the fact that the place of formation of many Jain castes is definitively known.20 This place is the cities in an overwhelming majority of cases.
In north and west India, merging of Hindu and Jain com
10.
Ibid., pp. 111-14.