Kesarimalji Surana Abhinandan Granth

Author(s): Nathmal Tatia, Dev Kothari
Publisher: Kesarimalji Surana Abhinandan Granth Prakashan Samiti

Page 1247

JINASENA AND HIS POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
RAJMAL JAIN Asstt. Director, Central Hindi Directorate, Ministry of Education, (Govt. of India) West Block-7, R. K. Puram, P. O. NEW DELHI-22
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In any account of Jaina polity, poet Ācārya Jinasena occupies the foremost place. Though he himself was a mendicant, he composed Adipurāņa upto 10,380 verses or 42 cantos and 3 verses in literary excellence, anyone will feel proud of. He set before himself the task of narrating the lives of 63 excellent men (salākā puruşa) but due to his death in the midst of composition, the task was accomplished by his able disciple Gunabhadrācārya.
Though Adipurāņa is encyclopaedic in character encompassing biography, cosmology, philosophy, religion, ethics, polity and all that; it is also important from the point of view of Jaina political philosophy, for in it, is found the most complete and systematic account of Jaina political theory. For a student of politics, three of its cantos viz., the third, the sixteenth and the forty-second are important. In the third canto, Jinasena describes Jaina view of cosmic evolution of the universe as well as life in the state of nature' (if we can use the modern term) or life prior to the emergence of society and state. In terms of Jaina mythology, the life described therein is that lived in Bhogabhūmi (or the period of land of enjoyment) or life upto the time of the fourteenth kulakara i. e., Nābhiraja. The sixteenth canto is concerned with the life of man before and after the emergence of Kingship or under Kulakara and first King Rsabhadeva or in Karmabhumi (the land of action) and his initiation into various means of livelihood as well as the creation of the three social classes. In thirty-eighth canto, the Acärya relates as to how Bharata, son of Rsabhadeva and world ruler (Cakravartin) by that time created the fourth class viz., the Brāhmana. In the last canto that Jinasena composed i. e., the forty-second canto, duties of a temporal ruler are explained by Bharata to the subordinate rulers assembled around him,
By the caption Jinasena and his Political Philosophy' it is not suggested here that Jinasena was the first or orginal political theorist. It is only intended to convey that the finest exposition of this theory is found in his work. Jinasena does not in end to take all credit to himself for this theory. In fact, it is Jaina śrut (heard) tradition reduced to writing. The tradition had been there since the first tīrthamkara Rsabhadeva. It was narrated to King Sreņika - Bimbisāra of Magadha by Bhagawāna Mahāvīra through his principal disciple (Gañadhara) Gautama, It is