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specifically that of the individual who sponsors the performance of the sacrifice, and as a profoundly creative force. The sacrifice came to be seen as implicated in the emergence of both the universe and the individual himself and the Brahmanas demonstrate at length the inter-relatedness of the various parts of the ritual and the cosmos.
Two generalised ideas which were to be central for Indian religions resulted from these speculations. The first of these is the world of continuity and rebirth (samsara), an extension of the idea that the sacrifice could extend existence over more than one lifetime. The second idea is generally known as karma, a concept which developed from an original specifically ritual context in which a correctly performed sacrificial action (karman) resulted in birth and continued life in the next world to the generally held belief that any action of whatever quality generated rebirth as a consequence. In the Upanishads, there also occur the first statements of the view, dominant in Jain teachings and elsewhere, that rebirth is undesirable and that it is possible by controlling or stopping one's actions to put an end to it and attain a state of deliverance (moksha) which lies beyond action.5
The Jains, along with the Buddhists, accepted the ideas of karma and rebirth as representing basic facts of human experience, taken for granted in the earliest scriptures with no need being felt to justify their validity. That is not to say that the Jains subscribed to the cult of animal sacrifice itself, for they have always espoused as a central and necessary moral tenet the principle of ahimsa, 'non-violence' to all creatures and, indeed, they have contended that even the performance of a sacrifice with an inanimate surrogate is wrong, as in the famous story of Yashodhara who went to hell because of his innately violent mental disposition, despite having offered to a goddess merely a cockerel made of dough." Nonetheless, the Jains were also cognisant of the potency of sacrifice as a cultural symbol and sought to reinterpret both Vedic ritual and the brahman sacrificer who manipulated it in their own ethical terms. One of the most venerated Shvetambara scriptures describes how Harikesha, a Jain monk of untouchable origins, approached in silence some brahmans who were performing a sacrifice in order to get alms. On being violently attacked by them, he was saved by a tree-spirit who intervened
