Jainism Some Essays

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

Page 75

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Jainism
taught him indirectly. He made many his gurus such as Alārakālām and others but he never hesitated in abandoning them also one by one. Dissatisfaction never leaves him even after having absorbed what he learnt from each of the gurus. He marches ahead believing that what training he received at the hands of his gurus did not unfold the sight of Truth, This mode of life of Buddha explains the fact that he made gurus one by one and came to possess various spiritual experiences handed over to him by each of them. Inspite of this, he never enjoyed satisfaction, contentment. In the matter of self-realization, he tried a number of exercises, both easy and difficult. Finally, he bade a good-bye to all of them and evolved his own way of spiritual realization which he endeavoured to get through them. At the top of his voice he declared after this that no one so far has ever been able to achieve what I myself have through my experiences and experiments with Truth. My way of life and my vision are original and unforeseen before. From this point of view Bauddha religion as propounded by Buddha is his own. It is his own invention and not traditionally handed down to him. He is the discoverer and not the follower.
This makes it abundantly clear that Mahāvira followed the traditions which he inherited from his predecessors while Buddha created his own; that Mahāvira's religious life reflected the image of the tenets and teachings of the previous Tirthankaras, while Buddhism was originated by Buddha himself and that he created his own traditions.
Propaganda of Jaina Religion and Bauddha Religion-its outward causes.
It is but natural that advantages or disadvantages are to be found in both the ancient or the newly created tradition. This applies to Jainism and equally to Buddhism also. A zeal for propaganda so far as old trad concerned is always found waping while the same is manifest in a more intensified manner in the case of the newly created one. Negligence is usual feature in the case of the ancient tradition but it cannot be tolerated if it were the recently started tradition. This rule is reflected in such utterences of Buddha as this : “चरथ भिक्खवे चारिकां बहुजनहिताय बहुजनसुखाय. These words of Buddha enjoin upon the monks to take up propaganda of his gospel. But in the Jaina canon no such exhortation is met with or is possible to meet with. Here, in the Jaina canon the monks are advised or even ordered to move about here and there but unlike Buddhism they are to do it with a view to working out self-rlalization. By sticking to one place for a long time it was feared that the monks would thereby involve themselves in love and hatred and therefore a change of place off and on was considered necessary to avoid this evil. Propaganda of religion was a secondary development, a natural sequel to the