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Fifth Vow of Vardhamana Mahavira : Its Causes
the popular state of affairs in saying that no one cares whether a wife is unchaste or not.34
A doubt may be raised that when there was so much moral decadence in the age of Parsva; why did he not fight this evil and give a specific vow of Brahmacharya ? His age was marked by the general prevalence of sacrifices in their fullest glory. Brahmavarta witnessed the scenes of great and numerous Asvamedhas. Vedic people were perpetuating great violence to human beings and beasts in the name of culture. Yajna was their chief weapon. The whole atmosphere was surcharged with violence. The period was marked by mass animal sacrifices on large scale. Degeneration in sex-relationship was only a necessary corollary of the violent Yajnas. It was only a branch of a big tree. Parsva attacked the principal evil. He might have thought that the branch will fall with the fall of the tree as Mahatma Gandhi thought that the Princely State would fall with the fall of British India Empire. He was so successful in uprooting the violent Yajnas that they became a memory of the past and the priests of Brhadaranyaka Upanisad bemoaned the fading away of Asvamedhas performed by the Pariksitas of old. 35 It was befitting of a supreme leader that he did not fight on more than one front and channelised all his energies to principal and main front. It paved the way for Mahâvîra's success against this sex evil.
The old order of sex-relationship in practical and ritualised form continued as before. Vedic people had consolidated their power through Tri-Ashrama system. The institution of Brahmacharya evolved and glorified. It ordained a young boy to live with his master for a certain number of years and learn proficiency in the Art of priesthood. Brahmachari was a pupil, a religious student or student of sacred wisdom. It is not without significance that the word Brahmacharya is not used in the kernel of Rigveda. The Vedic tribal collective was undivided in the earlier stages and there were neither Varnas nor Ashramas. It was only Brahma or Brahma or the tribal collective and everybody acted according to the injunctions of that Brahma. But when Brahma got disreputed, a class had to be created to safeguard the interests of priesthood and hence we find students for Vedic studies, the art of priesthood.
