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THE PREDECESSORS OF LORD MAHÂVÎRA
-N.R. Guseva
Many scholars consider or agree that Jainism constituted a reformatory movement in Brahmanism and that it is organically connected with it, as a sect happens to be connected with the religion giving birth to it. It is difficult to accept 'disappointment of the Hindus' as a historical reason for the rise of new religion in the first millennium B.C.
The conception of "Brahmanism" includes first of all the dictates of Brahmins in the sphere of ideology. While vedic hymns reflect a pattern of social relation in which the head of the family is invested with the right of performing sacrifice and turning to God with his entreaties now, in the period of Brahmanism all religious functions were concentrated gradually in the hands of the Brahmins. The word 'Brahmin' came to signify priest (The Brahmin), worldly spirit, prayer, and, then also books Brahmanas) which were commentaries on vedas, i.e. everything which was connected only, with the religious thinking, and ritual functions performed by members of the Brahmin caste. All the written sources and oral traditions preserve the testimony (evidence) of enmity of the Brahmins with the kshatriyas, and the conception of the reformatory dogmas is usually connected with the kshatriyas (in particular, Jainism is named gradually as a kshatriyas religion). Despite this word kshatriyas is understood to mean the martial caste of Indian class society. Here it is appropriate to pose the question: Did the word 'kshatriya' always have only that meaning? The word 'kshatri' from which the world kshatriya was formed latter, signifies in sanskrit, 'killer', 'cutter', 'distributor' from
