Lord Mahavira and His Times

Author(s): Kailashchandra Jain
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas

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Lord Mahāvīra and His Times conclusion can be drawn regarding the existence of Jainism in those days.
Jainism it appears, was not extant in so early a period, but the primitive currents of religious and philosophical speculation of the pre-Vedic period along with Sāňkya-Yoga and Buddhism considerably influenced this religion. All the three shared a kind of pessimism, a conclusion that human life is full of misery. No trace of this attitude is to be found in the optimistic outlook of the Vedic Aryans. The doctrine of transmigration, unknown to the early Brāhmaṇas, suddenly emerges in the Upanishads 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 some of the most primitive ideas of Karman are found in Jaina Metaphysics as well. An atheistic attitude and a kind of dualism between spirit and matter characterize 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.
H. JACOBII noticed 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 too. This theory of primitive animism in Jaina philosophy indicates that this religion originated at a very early time when higher forms of religious beliefs and cults had not taken hold of the Indian mind. Another mark of antiquity in Jainisin is that in the development of metaphysics, the category of quality is not yet clearly and distinctly conceived, but it is just cvolving, as it were, out of the category of substance.
In the Vedic period, there existed two distinct religious cultural traditions—the strictly orthodox and Aryan tradition
1. SBE, XLV, p. xxxiii.