Jainism Early Faith of Ashoka

Author(s): Edward Thomas
Publisher: Trubner and Company London

Page 63

THE EARLY FAITH OF ASOKA.
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has upon the pretensions of the Jainas to high antiquity. It is clear that the elaboration and gradual development of the subdivisions of caste must have been the work of ages; in early times. limited to four classes of men, it has so grown that, in our day, in a single district in Upper India, the official statistical return gives no less than ninety-five classes of the population, as ranged under the heading of "Caste," and the full total for the entire government of the NorthWestern Provinces mounts up "" to no less than 560 castes among the Hindus " alone."
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If this be taken as the rate of increase, to what primitive times must we assign the pre-caste period, and with it the indigenous population represented by those, who, with the simplest form of worship, avowedly lived a life of equality before their Maker; and so long resisted any recognition of caste, till the force of example and surrounding custom led them exceptionally, and in a clumsy way,3 to subject the free worship of each independent votary to the control of a ministering priesthood.
We may conclude, for all present purposes, that Vindusára followed the faith of his father, and that, in the same belief— whatever it may prove to have been-his childhood's lessons were first learnt by Asoka.
The Ceylon authorities assert that Vindusára's creed was "Brahmanical," but, under any circumstances, their testimony would not carry much weight in the argument about other lands and other times, and it is, moreover, a critical question as to how much they knew about Brahmanism itself, and whether the use of the word Brahman does not merely imply, in their sense, a non-Buddhistic or any religion opposed to their own.*
Report on Saharanpur, Elliot's Glossary, vol. i. p. 296.
2 Ibid, p. 283. Census Report for 1865.
3 "VRISHABHANÁTHA was incarnate in this world.
at the city of Ayodhya.
C
He also arranged the various duties of mankind, and allotted to men the means of subsistence, viz. Así, 'the sword;" Masi, letters' (lit. ink); Krishi, 'agriculture;' Vánijya, commerce;' Pagupála, attendance on cattle.' Thus Vrishabhanátha established the religion of the Jains, in its four classes or castes, of Bráhmans, Kshatris, Vaisyas, and Sudras."-C. Mackenzie, Asiatic Researches, vol. ix. p. 259.
4 "The father (of Asoka) being of the Brahmanical faith, maintained (bestowing daily alms) 60,000 Brahmans. He himself in like manner bestowed them for 3 years."-Mahawanso, p. 23.