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162
Lord Mahavira
Sankhya-Yoga and Buddhism. All three share a kind of pessimism, a conclusion that human life is full of misery, no trace of which is to be found in the optimistic attitude of the Vedic Aryans. The doctrine of transmigration, unknown to the early Brahmanas, suddenly emerges in the Upanisads and forms an essential element in these three systems. What is more important is the fact that this doctrine assumes its peculiarly Indian form by its association with the doctrine of Karman, and we know that most primitive ideas of Karman are found in Jaina Metaphysics. An atheistic attitude and a kind of dualism between spirit and matter characterise all the three systems of thought. To the same primitive influence of pre-Vedic times may also be attributed the introduction of the practice of image worship. From early times, the cult of symbols and images seems to have been current among the Jainas who continued the traditional religious practices of the pre-Aryan settlers of the Sindhu Valley region.
Hermann Jacobi23 some marks of antiquity in the character of Jaina philosophy. Such a mark is the animistic belief that nearly everything is possessed of a soul; not only have plants their own souls, but particles of earth, cold water, fire and wind also. This theory of primitive animisim of Jainism indicates that this religion originated at a very early time when higher forms of religious beliefs and cults had not yet, more generally, taken hold of Indian mind. Another mark of antiquity in Jainism is that in the development of metaphysics, the category of quality is not yet clearly and distinctly conceived, but it is just evolving, as it were out of the category of substance.
In the Vedic period, there existed two distinct religious and cultural traditions the strictly orthodox and Aryan tradition of the Brahmanas and the straggling culture of the Munis and Sramanas most probably going back to pre-Vedic and pre-Aryan origins. During the later Vedic period, the two streams tended to mingle and the result was the great religious ferment from which Jainism appears to have originated. Jainism and other Sramika religious sects grew up among the imperfectly Aryanised communities of the east in response to the cultural atmosphere arid social needs. These sects spread, flourished and became highly popular there. On the other hand, Brahmapical religion had its stronghold in the north and the west.
