Most Ancient Aryan Society

Author(s): Ram Chandra Jain
Publisher: Institute of Bharatalogical Research Sriganganagar Rajasthan

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Truthful-Speech, here, are enumerated amongst the gifts of the priests. Chhāndogya recommends only the truthful speech, not the truth in entirety. The gift of non-violence is done away with by another reference in the same Upanişad where violence is permitted at holy places. The preUpanișadic Vedic thought is purely materialistic. Hence we cannot look to Upanişads for comparing the Bhāratīya spiritual thonghts with those of Egypt and Sumer.
When the Brahmāryans penetrated the frontiers of Western Bhārata, we find asecetics and Yogīs surviving from pre-vedic and pre-Aryan times. They are called “Munis' in Vedic literature and Sramaņas in the age of Buddha and Mahāvīra. Muni was to the Rgvedic culture an alien figure. Asceticism is directly opposed to the entire Weltanschauung of the Rgveda-Samhitā. The Śramaņa sects held towards the world an attitude of ascetic pessimism, disbelieved in a personal cause or creator of the universe, accepted plurality of souls and an ultimate distinction bet. ween Soul and Matter, regarded the world of common sense as real as due to one or more real factors at least partly independent of the soul, and consequently regarded as indispensable for salvation some form of strenuous practical discipline aiming at affecting a real alteration in the situation of Things. The Śramaņic culture was ascetic, atheistic, pluralistic and 'realistic' in content. This comes out clearest from a consideration of the earliest faith of the Jainas—one of the oldest living surviving sects of the Munis. The preUpanişadic materialistic (Pravștti-Dharmic) Vedic thought later evolved pseudo-spiritual thought (Nivștti-Dharmic) mainly through the influences of the Muni Sramaņa culture, in pre-Buddhistic times, within its fold. 23
The Achārārga is the most ancient extant Jaina Sūtra going probably to fourth century B. C. The Pre-Aryan