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भ० महावीर-स्मृति-प्रथा
aloofness and mystifying "secrecy of the Brahmanical thinkers in matters religious and philosophical. There was no need of interpreters of the tangue of gods. There can be no mediator between man and God. Mahavira popularized philosophy and religion and threw open the portals of heaven to the down-trodden and the weak, the humble and the lowly. To him spirituality was not the property of the privileged few, but a valued possession of each and all It is only in the form of human being that the spirit can realise itself. Gods are inferior to the man of conduct. They symbolisc Only a stage in the development of the spirit. The final developmeat, however, is possible only in the human form. The idea of an over.free omnipotent Creator God and His incarnation is exploded as a myth, and the Iesponsibility of creation is put on the shoulders of those sbo inbabit and enjoy it. Conduct is judged by the spiritual law of ahimsa, perfect and absolute. The means are not justified by the end. It is perhaps with refer. cace to these revolutionary ideals that a modern critic informed with the faith in merciful God, bas characterized Jaipssm as 'a religion in which the chief points insisted upon, are that one should deny God, worship man and nourish vermin'. Philosophy, with Mahāvīra, is not an intellectual system based on data supplied by paychological analysis, or a metaphysical speculation based on scientific investigation, but an all comprehensive view based on spiritual realization, wherein all other views find proper jusufication These are, in brief the general features of the message of Lord Mabīrita.
The roots of Jawism can be traced out in that coating mass of Sramana literature which developed side by side with the ancient Vedic, and had, according to Dr Maurice Winterditz, the following characteristic fcatures : It disregards the system of castes and abhramas; its heroes are, as a rule, not gods and Rishis, but kings or merchants or even Shudras The subjects of poetry taken up by it are not Brahmanic myths and legends, but popular tales, fairy stories, fables and parables. It likes to insist on the misery and suffering of Samsāra, and it teaches a morality of compas-sion and Ahimsā, quite distinct from the ethics of Brahmanism with its idcals of the great sacrificer and generous supporter of the priests and its atrict adherence to the caste system'. 'Jainism together with Sankhya. Yoga', accordig to the Dr. Hermann Jacobi,' is the earliest representative of that mental revolution which brought about the close of the Vedic and inaugurated the new period of Indian culture which has lasted through the - spiddle ages almost down to the present time'. We can clearly discern in
the formative period, nay, throughout the development, of our culture, - two distinct ferces, perpetually struggling for supermacy and evolving a more and more rational culture of these two forces, one attracts us to the - spiritual life by inststing on misery and suffering, while the other strives to - keep us attached to the duties and responsibilties of social life. The advent of Mahavira and the Buddha reprasenta a period of supremacy of the former over the latter. This poriod was, of courso, preceded by A long period of
