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THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL
BACKGROUND OF MAHẬVÎRA'S TEACHINGS*
-Dr. N.N. Bhattacharya
A.L. Basham while dealing with the history of the Ajivikas suggested that the doctrines of Gosala, Purana and Pakudha were aspects of a single body of teaching? To us it, however, appears that this holds good in the case of all their contemporaries including the Buddha and Mahâvîra. It was due to the fact that the Buddha, Mahâvîra and their contemporaries belonged to the same region and that they responded and reacted in their own ways, which were more or less similar, to the same stimuli arising out of the stupendous socio-political transformation which was taking place in eastern India in their time.
Mahâvîra was born in an age when the Janapadas (tribal settlements) were developing into mahajanapadas (bigger confederacies) leading to the rise of organised states. Already four mahajanapadas became distinguished as powerful states, and the forces behind the subsequent Magadhan imperialism could be seen. Mahâvîra belonged to Vaisali? which was a tribal settlement belonging to confederation of tribes collectively known by the name of the Vajjis. Mahâvîra's maternal uncle Cetaka was the leader of the Vijjien confederacy of tribes. The growth of Magadhan state power required annihilation of many a tribal settlement. Bimbisara, the first powerful Magadhan king, who was a senior comtemporary of Mahâvîra, did not hesitate to annex the settlements of the Angas and the Kasis, while his son Ajatasatru
* Read at the All India Seminar on Early Janism, Oct. 17, 1979 at Punjabi University Patiala.
