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Śramana, Vol 54, No. 10-12/October-December 2003
with that of Brāhmanism and says “Buddhism and Jainism must be regarded as religions developed out from Brāhmaṇism and not by a sudden reformation but prepared by a religious movement gaining for a long time”. Charpentier also thinks that the rules and regulations and the mode of life of Sramaņas was on the foot prints of Brahmanical antagonists and they were in practice in their day to day life since long ago. Its antiquity goes back to early Vedic period where ‘āśrama' way of life is observed.?' Buddhist and Jain literature say that Śramaņas and Brāhmaṇas together enjoyed the pre-eminence and esteem and were equally regarded as the chosen exponents of philosophic ideas and speculations. They were equally regarded by house-holders and were equally honoured and gifted by kings and others. Deussen compares Śramaņās with Upanisadic theories of Tāpas and Nyasa, but is seems that they can be compared only with the Brähmanical Sarinyäsi and not with the Buddhist Parivrājakas or Jain Śramaņas. It is significant that Buddhist and Jain texts never use the term 'Sannyasī' for their spiritual wanderers which was frequently used in the Upanişads So it is presumed that the religious mendicancy as an institution in India could not have begun as the empirical result of anyone philosophic doctrine or concept? and they adopted some or the other rules, thoughts and principles from each-other. "The doctrine of renunciation in these works (Dharmasūtras, 5th Cent. B.C) is not the doctrine of Samnyāsa as an asrama or stage but as the only mode of ideal life while the Vedic tradition in course of time came to accept the doctrine of Karman and Samsāra and hence could not but accept the validity of Samnyāsa, it never gave up its age old value of respecting and actively fulfilling social obligations.”23
Non-Aryan Thoughts: Scholars like Oldenberg, Dutt and Upadhyaya are of the opinion that Śramanism has developed out of the non- Aryan east- Indian indigenous element. It is notworthy that one who seeks to embrace religious mendicant discards all the marks of Aryan birth and breading like sacred tuft of hair, sacred thread, sacrificial rites, Vedic studies etc. According to Upadhye "we should no more assess the Sārkhya, Jain, Buddhist and Ājivaka tenets as more perverted continuations of stray thoughts selected at random from the, Upnisadic bed of Aryan thought current. The inherent similarities in these systems, as against the essential dissimilarities with Aryan (Vedic and Brāhmaṇic) religion and the gaps that a dispassionate study might detect between
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