Jainism in North India

Author(s): Chimanlal J Shah
Publisher: Longmans Green and Compny London

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JAINISM IN NORTH INDIA
rationalistic age Its duration differs with different authors, but generally the limit can be put as between 1000–200 B c.1 The age of epic India had passed away The Kurus, the Pañcālas, the Kosalas, and the Videhas of the Gangetic Valley no more existed. It was in this period that the Aryans issued out of the Gangetic Valley and founded Hindu kingdoms even in the southernmost parts of India, suffusing their new settlements with their glorious civilisation.
And this is precisely a period which is marked by a great flourish of religion in India "Her ancient religion, which the Hindu Aryans had practised and proclaimed for fourteen centuries, had degenerated into forms "a India was now to witness the commencement of a great revolution Whether for the better or for the worse, she had to face a great upheaval in the Hindu fold "Religion in its true sense had been replaced by forms. Excellent social and moral rules were disfigured by the unhealthy distinctions of caste, by exclusive privileges for Brahmans and by cruel laws for Sūdras Such exclusive caste privileges did not help to improve the Brahmans themselves. As a community they became grasping and covetous, ignorant and pretentious, until Brahmana-Sutrakāras themselves had to censure the abuse in the strongest terms." 3
The institution of priesthood among the Hindus is certainly a later growth; for although the word Brahman is used in the Rigveda (which Veda goes back to the earliest times of Aryan culture in India), it only meant "singers of sacred songs "5 And it was now that they came to designate a class of religious functionaries As time went on the office seems to have become hereditary, and by and by the Brahmans came to be regarded with higher and higher honour. With it their pretensions also rose higher and higher, but they could not yet form an exclusive caste. This was the situation before the Aryans had advanced beyond the Seven Rivers, at the mouth of the Indus, where they had origin
1 Cf Dutt, op at (Contents), Mazumdar, op cat (Contents) Dutt, op al, p 310
Ibid, p 341, see also "(Brahmans) who neither study nor teach the Veda nor Leep sacred fires become equal to Sudras "--Vasishtha, m, 1 Cf Bühler, SBE, XIV,
p 10
Grillith, The Hymns of the Rigveda, 11, pp 96, 97, etc (2nd ed) Cf Tiele, Outlines of the History of Religion, p 115
"In course of time the priest's connection with the sovereign appears to have nssumed permanency, and probably become hereditary "Cf Law, N N, Ancient Indian Polity, p 44
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