Mahavira and his Teaching

Author(s): C C Shah, Rishabhdas Ranka, Dalsukh Malvania
Publisher: Bhagwan Mahavir 2500th Nirvan Mahotsava Samiti

Page 336

THE ASCENDENCY & ECLIPSE OF BHAGAVAN MAHĀVĪRA’S CULT 329 78. Tradition declares that Sankara himself was very unpopular at his own birth-place and that he had to cremate his own mother's dead body without the co-operation of the people of his own caste. How could he then dream of establishing a mutt in that area at least, if not at Kanyākumāri? 79. Presumably the various persecutions of the Jainas at Madhurai a few decades earlier must have been lingering in the minds of the rulers of Kanyākumāri and Keraļa and it is very likely that they were organising defence measures. And, again, even though the later Palļava and Chaļūkya monarchs were actively assisting the Advaita pontiffs by inviting their successors to establish mutts in their respective territories, it certainly needed at least a non-partisan government at Kanyākumari to enable Sankara to establish a mutt there. How could a Jaina king, influenced by half-a-dozen big Jaina monasteries close by, be expected to be so foolish as to permit an inimical movement to get a foothold in his soil ? IX. Hindu Assimilation of Jaina Motives: 80. It is necessary at this stage to state briefly what a Sankara mutt was and how it copied the Jaina church in its technique of organization. It was a legally constituted body, Pītha, headed by a bachelor hermit (Brahmacārī sanyasin), exercising absolute control over all the Hindu hermits of the entire quarter. This pontiff and his local representatives, practising asceticism themselves, were to tour their respective regions supervising the religious rites (Saṁskāras) and daily practices (Dinacaryās) of the four varnas. They co-ordinated the worships of Siva, Vishnu, Saktí, Sürya, Kumāra and Ganapati and recommended the consecration of the images of all these deities in every home and temple. But the most important and epoch-making innovation was their advice to all performers of Vedic sacrifices to substitute vegetable offerings for live animal victims. The ‘Manimekhalar', one of the five great Tamil epics, tells us that some orthodox Brāhmins of that age were performing sacrifices, involving the killing of many animals, including the cow. One Brāhmin M.M.-42