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they trusted to take care of not only their ultimate salvation but even of their immediate yoga-kşema, the daily bread and butter. The sectarian Puräņas vied with each other in creating a world of fantasy for the benefit of the devotees, who silently accepted as "the Lord's will" untold injustices of an oppressive caste system from within and humiliating defeats and devastations at the hands of unbelievers from without. Jaina Concept of the Sacred
As far as we know, no complaint was uttered either by the oppressed masses below or the enlightened brahmins above. The only recorded protest that survives is to be found in the vast literature of the heterodox systems, especially of the Jains, a literature created mostly for the guidance of the Jain laity, which had to be protected from the overwhelming waves of bhakti that engulfed the rest of India. A careful study of this literature, particularly during the medieval period, shows the Jains as pioneers among those who challenged the authority of the Vedas, disputed the efficacy of their sacrifices, repudiated the doctrine of the Creator, rediculed the sacrality of the avatāras, and rejected the brahmanical rituals. In this way they sought to establish a "desacralized cosmos", if we can use such an expression, in which to pursue kaivalya or “isolation", their vision of salvation.
The Jain critique of the "sacred" in the Vedic tradition centers around the examination of the nature of an āpta, a technical term meaning 'reliable authority in matters pertaining to salvation of the soul from the bonds of samsāra. This clearly falls in the realm of dharma, and the Mimarsaka declares that only the Vedas, by virtue of their being apauruşeya (uncreated by a human or divine agency) are to be considered apta. The problem of eternal words engaged the attention of such scholastic philosophers as Jaimini, Kumärila and Bhastshari; but Jains saw no difficulty in dismissing the whole controversy with the simple observation that the Vedas consist of words, and like any other composition, must have a human author. The Theist intervenes here, attempting to save the situation by declaring that the Veda are neither Uncreated nor man-made, but emenate as revealation from the Creator, the eternally free and omniscient being who alone deserves to be called āpta. The Jain arguments against this theory are basically two-fold: 1) Creation is not possible without a desire to create and this implies imperfection on the part of the alleged Creator. 2) If karma is relevant in the destinies of human beings, then God is irrelevant; if he rules regardless of karma of beings, then he is cruel and capricious. In brief, the Creator is not free from räga and dveşa and hence is neither free nor omniscient; therefore, he cannot be an apta.
The Jain needed no better proof for his thesis than the Hindu Puranas, which narrated the most shocking deeds of their God, perpetrated as He assumed the forms of Brahmä, Vişnu and Siva. They extolled what appeared to the Jain the most hideous and imnioral exploits of Narasimha or Krşna, the Lord's alleged avatāras or manifestations on earth. Akalańka, a celebrated ninth century logician
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