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The Main features of Mahāvīri's contributions
Ahimsă supported by the vow of aparigraha has since been the central ethical principle of the Jainas. Soon the Jainas began to develop the doctrine of karma, and came to declare that the removal of karma from the soul is the sole pathway for liberation, against MV's thesis that anărambha (which is also understood as akarma or non-action) is the sole pathway for liberation. And here occurred a conflict in the late canonical age that liberation is no more possible unless an ascetic is born in Mahavideha. 3
The concept of karma involving the concepts of rebirth and liberation, the problem of self (ātmā) etc. came to be the common themes of discussion after the opening of the Upanişadic age, and the śramaņic circles in the age of MV and Buddha also took them up as their common important problems. The theory of karma taught by MV in the Acāra I-Sūtrakrta I does not differ much from that taught by the contemporary masters in the other schools, in which the peculiar Jaina concept that karma is the matter is totally absent, MV must have thus adopted the then prevalent theory of karma in order to propagate the way of non-violence as his contemporary rivals commonly did. Pārsva's followers frequently discuss about the subjects of ethics and discipline with the Jainas in the Jaina canon, but they hardly argue about the purely theoretical aspect of kama doctrine. The doctrine of karma was obviously not their central concern and the Pārsva's order at the time of MV did not likely show keen interest in the karma theory.
All this suggests that the fundamental basis of Jainism that owes to the order of Pārsva was in the main the doctrine and certain disciplinery rules of anārambha unaccompanied by the vow of aparigraha. Then what was likely the doctrine of anārambha taught in the pre-MV period ?
MV classified the objects of ārambha into 6 types of beings, i.e. earthbeings, water-beings, fire-beings, wind-bzings, vegetable beings and movable beings. These are called the sixfold classes of beings(jīva-nikāyas)that constitute the loka. MV owes his classification to the then carrent theory of mahābhūtas that were postulated to constitute the material world, as for instance Buddha formulated the concept of 5 skandhas, and Gośāla did 4 kāyas by adopting them. Gośala who practised with MV for some years also believed that jivas abide in the bodies made of earth, water, fire and wind separately or jointly. The pre-MV view of the objects of ārambha or the world view must have been therefore a primitive animist position that the world is packed with the visible and invisible living beings. Animism as such wil was also shared by the Ajivikas must have been widely believed in those days.4
Sambodhi Vol IX(8)
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