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The Social And Political Background Of Mahâvîra's Teachings
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Ditthadhammanibbanavadins of the Buddhist texts or the Sayavadins or Samucchedavadins or Na-santiparalokavadins of the Jain texts identified body with soul and sought the summum bonnum of life in worldly pleasures, while others debated on the question of the existence of soul apart from body. All these doctrines were directly or indirectly concerned with death and annihilation.
It is against this background that Mahâvîra's sayings concerning human misery should be read. Overwhelmed by the stupendous social transformation and wholesale bloodshed of his time, Mahâvîra said:
The (living) world is afflicted, miserable, difficult to instruct, and without discrimination. In this world, full of pain, suffering by their different acts, see the benighted ones cause great pain."
Regarding the cravings for wealth and power, by which the class societies are characterized, the Master said:
He who longs for the qualities (i.e., greed and carnal desire), is overcome by great pain, and he is careless. (For he thinks) I have to provide for a mother, for a father, for a sister, for a wife, for sons, for daughters, for a daughter-in-law, for my friends, for near and remote relations, for my acquaintance, for different kinds of property, profit, meals and clothes. Longing for these objects, people are careless, suffer day and night, work in the right and wrong time, desire wealth and treasures, commit injuries and violent acts, direct the mind again and again, upon these injurious doings.7
The consequences of this accumulation of wealth, of the growth of private property, have not been overlooked by the great Master who observed:
Having acquired the wealth, employing bipeds and quadrupeds, gathering riches in the three ways, whatever his portion will be, small or great, he will desire to enjoy it. Then at one time, his manifold savings are a large treasure. Then at another time his heirs divide it away, or those who are without a living steal it, or the king takes it away, or it is ruined in some way or other or it is consumed by the conflagration of the house. Then after a time, he falls in sickness; those with whom he lives together, first grumble at him, and he afterwards grumbles at
