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kala and it certainly seems unlikely that Parmatman Mahavira would have spoken encouragingly in favour of the Brahmana class or founded or established it afresh, to be the harbinger of evil as described in the Adipurana. But that does not suffice to show that Brahmanas did not originate in the reign of Bharat Chakravarti as the Jain tradition runs. The argument of B. Surajbhan as to this is purely negative. He construes certain passages in the Adi Purana as going to show that the Brahmanas existed from before the time when Bharat is said to have established them as a separate caste. But he forgets that his conclusions are based on those very passages in the Adipurana which he regards as spurious. This is clearly not permissible in rational literature. The first question, then, is, to whom is to be ascribed the origin of the Brahmana class, to the Hindus who claim that it issued out of the mouth of Brahma, or to the lainas? The answer is obvious : the Hindu explanation is mythological embellishment (alankara), and cannot be accepted as historical. This is tantamount to saying that the origination of the Brahmanas. and for the matter of that of the remaining three castes has a mythological significance in Hinduism, which cannot, for that reason, be deemed to be the founder of these castes, in the historical sense. On the other hand, the Jainas claim that the Brahmanas were established by Bharat Chakravarti, while the other three castes were founded by Paramatman Rishabha Deva. This is undoubtedly a historical tradition and I see nothing improbable in it, especially as the Omniscient Tirthamkara was not likely to establish the condemned class Himself, while Bharat was powerless to prevent what was fated to happen through his own instrumentality. It is also conceivable that the Brahmana class of the Jainas died out at the end of the fourth kala during one of the periods of extinction of Jainism and was not re-established by the next Tirthamkara, who knew it to be a powerful potentiality of evil. The criticism of the author here is refreshing, but its
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