Some Aspects of Jainism in Eastern India

Author(s): Pranabananda Jash
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publisher's Pvt Ltd New Delhi

Page 29

The Parivrājakas
it is evident that the authors had but a limited knowledge of the teachings of the heretics, and what knowledge they had was warped by odium theologicum."62
Barring these six heretical schools of thought, there were other 'heretic' or 'heterodox' philosophical schools outside the pale of Brāhmaṇism in that period. Besides, the Buddhist and Jaina sources, the Upanişads.63 especially the later Māņduk ya-kārikā, 64 the Pāñcarātra Sanhitā,65 etc., also bear enough materials which refer to, besides the atheists, pseudo-ascetics, Kāpālikas and followers of Bịhaspati, those doctrinaires who proclaim Kalayāda (time), Svabhāvavāda (nature), Niyativāda (fate), Yadịcchāvāda (chance), Bhūtavāda (elements) as also Prāņa (life-force), Guņas (qualities), Diśaḥ (space), Manas (mind), Buddhi (intellect), and so forth as their first principles. The Buddhist texts refer to two main classes of intellectual movements-(i) those that speculate on the first beginnings of things (Pubbanta-Kappika) and (ii) those that speculate about the future goal of creation (Aparānta-Kappika). The former consisted of four kinds of Sāssatavāda (eternalists), four kinds of Ekacca-Sassatavāda (partial eternalists), four kinds of Antānantikā (limitists and unlimitists), four kinds of Amarāvikkhepikā (evasive disputants) and two kinds of Adhiccasamuppanikā (fortuitous originists); while the latter one consisted of sixteen kinds of Saññivāda (upholders of conscious soul after death', eight kinds of Asaññivāda (upholders of unconscious soul after death), eight kinds of Nevasaññināsuññivāda (upholders of neither conscious nor unconscious soul after death), seven kinds of Uchhedavāda (annihilationists and five kinds of Diţghadhammanibbānavāda (believers in the attainment of Nibbāna in this life).€6 All these doctrines have been described by the Buddhists as wrong and misleading (micchādiţthi) and they are refuted by Buddhaghoșa,67 and by Nāgārjuna and Candrakirti. 68
The Jaina texts, on the other hand, speak of 363 philosophical views which were current in that period which was an age of acute intellectual upheaval in the cultural history of India. These views were grouped into four main schools, viz., Kriyāvāda, Akriyāvāda, Ajñinavāda and Vinayarāda. The first two schools are again classified into 180 and 84 varieties, while the last two into 67 and 32 forms. Most of the schools belonging to the Buddhist Publānta and Aparānta Kappikas correspond to the various groups of the Akriyavādins mentioned in the Jaina texts.