Schools and Sects in Jaina Literature

Author(s): Amulyachandra Sen
Publisher: Vishwa Bharati Calcutta

Page 23

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SCHOOLS AND SECTS IN JAINA LITERATURE
meaning is that only the gods and not men are capable of attaining mokşa, i.e., in order to obtain mok sa a man must first attain a god's status and then progress onwards to final liberation, for as mere man he cannot obtain liberation. This is probably a piece of casuistry on the part of the Brahmanical priests to tempt yajamānas to engage their services for securing by means of sacrifices the status of gods after death.
While arguing with Adda one man says that those who always feed two thousand holy mendicants acquire great merit, become gods and that is the teaching of the Veda. This is clearly a statement put into the mouth of a follower of Brahmanism.
Stories are mentioned of various Brahmanical adherents engaging in disputes with Nirgrantha ascetics. The subject matter of the discussion is not of much importance but the descriptions which precede about the intellectual equipment of the Brahmanical disputant are very interesting. As for instance, in Săvatthi dwelt a mendicant Khandaya by name of the Kaccāyana gotra, a disciple of Gaddabhāli. To him went Pingalaya, a Nirgrantha adherent, and asked whether the world was with or without an end, whether the jīva was with or without an end, etc. Khandaya was terribly upset, we are told, by these questions, could give no answer, kept quiet, and at last went to Mahāvīra for setting at ease his severe discomfiture. All we can inferentially gather from such accounts is that in the opinion of the authors of these narratives the followers of Brahmanism and other schools concerned could not give a satisfactory solution of such vital problems, but we must beware of reading too much in these statements. Probably to set off Khandaya's indifference to high metaphysical curiosity we are told that he was a teacher of, prevented corruption from entering into, retained in his memory, and was well-versed in the four Vedas Ķik, Yajus, Säman, and Atharvan, to which is added Itibāsa as the fifth, Nighanțu as the sixth, along with the Angas, Upāngas, and the Rahasya, knew the six Angas and the philosophy of the sixty categories, arithmetic, phonetics, ceremonial, grammar, pirosody, etymology, and astronomy and in many other branches of knowledge suited for Brahmanic mendicants."'.
Sät.S. II. 6.43.
Bhag. 2.1.90; the same enumeration is referred to by a rubric in 15.541 and 18.10.646; repeated in Vip. S. 1.5., Aup. 38, and Kalpa S. 2.10. "The philosophy of the sixty categories' is explained by Abhayadeva as the doctrine of Kapila, sasthitantra which means the Sankhya system. The analogous formula of the Buddhists for describing & Brahman, as given in the Ambattha S., is pretty much the same with a few minor additions.