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THE MAIN FEATURES OF MAHAVIRA'S
CONTRIBUTIONS
Suzuko Ohira
1. Pre-Mahavira Doctorine of Non-violence It is now accepted that Mahāvīra (
MV) reformed Pārsva's doctrine and founded a new sect of the Jainas. However, it is extremely difficult for us to ascertain to what extent MV owed his teachings to Pārśva and what were his original contributions, for it involves the problem what were the Parsva's doctrine and practice at the time of MV.
The tradition informs us that Pārsavanātha passed away 250 years before MV, the accuracy of whose date is of course an open question. Pā. rśva's followers make their frequent appearance in the Jaina canon, howe. ver we never hear that they left their own sacred texts. The Pārsvan school and the Jaina school had been existing for long side by side in friendly terms, and it is assumed that the Pārsvans were practically absorbed by the Jainas by the end of the canonical age when the Jaina chronology of 24 tīrtbańkaras was established with Pārsvanātha as its 23rd. 1
Such being the case, Pārsva's position at the time of MV must be found in the early texts of the Jaina canon. Our capacity for it is, without going to say, extremely limited, and it is an impossible task for us to reconstruct its definite picture. It is nevertheless required to have even a tolerably plausible picture of it if we attempt to evaluate MV's performance in founding a new sect. This is ventured in the following by taking advantage of the predecessors' achievements involving this problem so that this very topic will be further improved and developed in the future.
MV's original teachings are best preserved in the Acara I and the Sutrakặta I, between which a certain temporal distance is recognized. What these earliest texts of the Jainas express are that non-violence is the sole pathway for liberation and how it should be achieved, which essentially differ from the positions maintained by the other schools. MV's doctrine of non-violence or anārambha (later called ahimsā) is accompanied by the law of aparigraha. And the discussion held between Kesi, a Pārsvan monk, and Goyama, MV's disciple, in the Uttara XXIII, gives a testimony to the fact that MV was the authority who enunciated the vow of aparigraha.?
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