Jainism Some Essays

Author(s): A S Gopani
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

Page 54

Hindu Religion and Jaisa Reli gion
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1. Vedic Religion
The thoughts and ethical code which the Aryans brought with them when they came to India, approximately three thousands and a half years before, are known as Vedic religion or Srauta religion. Just as scholars believe, that religion should be understood in the spirit and light in which the religion imported into India from outside should be taken. According to that religious practices which were in the form of sacrifices involving injury to living beings and performed without elaborate rites and rituals, were laid down as also the propitiation of a number of gods, through the sacrifices. But a background had come about to stay in which those various gods, though different in names, were substantially one. This worship or propitiation had no lofty goal except that of destruction of the enemies and the increase of material prosperity. In the ancient Vedas. a desperate effort was made to satisfy the curiosity regarding the composition of the universe, its nature, the time and method of its creation, its creator etc. etc. But no definite explanation could be found. It is also found in them that there were four classes forming the society. This Vedic religion can be thought of as forming the foundation of Hindu religion.
2. Brāhmaṇa Religion
A developed form of the aforesaid Vedic religion in course of time has come to be known as the Brāhmaṇa religion. It is so named because its basis is the Brāhmaṇa works forming an Appendix to the Vedas. An attempt to know is made in these about how and where the original Mantras of the Vedas should be employed and how to harmonize the stories and episodes suggested in them. If the Vedas are the compositions of the Rşis and the Brāhmana works, the creation of the priests whose main aim was to organize the rites and rituals of which sacrifices were the chief constituents. The direct result of this was that the simple sacrifices of the Vedic times assumed a complicated form, becoming an improbability without the help of the experts. Because of this, the dignity of the priesthood became enhanced and the priests arrogated to themselves the status of teachers. In these sacrifices, the quantity, of the material used in them swelled, the rites and rituals became elaborate and the varieties also grew. The whole society for a long time got into the grip of the institution of sacrifices. It so appeared that there was nothing else to do but the sacrifices in the whole life. The sacrifice and the sacrifice only became the world and also God for the people. The Brahmanas who were the priests dominated the field. It does not appear that any special progress in the thinking was achieved during this period. An atmosphere in which the whole lot of ritualism was compressed into one