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Moral and Social Outlook of Sramanism
ficial religion and found in it a medium for the expression of power and pomp.
It is only in this background that we can understand by contrast the moral and social outlook of the Śramaņas. The notion of obligation, of giving in response to what one has received from society and the gods, constituted the key-stone in the arch of Vedic social ethics. This view linked man to nature and to the divine powers manifested in it. It also stressed man's social dependence and linked the generations together in the common effort of maintaining and developing a tradition. The Bhagavadgită beautifully summarizes this Vedic view in the third chapter concluding:
evam pravartitam cakram nanuvartayatiha yaḥ | aghayurindriyārāmo mogham pārtha sa jivati ||
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(3.16) The sacrifice is the basic principle of creation, representing a mutual bond between gods and men. It stands for a cycle of ritual giving and receiving. In contrast to this, Śramanism cut man lose from the sense of dependence on the gods and also sundered the bond of moral obligation tying the individual to his community. It replaced the gods by the force of Karman. What man receives he does not owe to the favour or frowns of any god but to his own past actions and efforts. This also affects the relationship of the individual to society. The individual becomes morally free. Social claims become conventional and cease to be final. The individual is himself responsible for his actions and cannot avoid their moral consequences. Man's character and history decide his destiny. His response to the environment should be the stoic one of apathia. He must seek to transcend his natural and social personality, not to fulfil it through the cultivation of its faculties and the satisfaction of its instincts and desires. Natural instincts and passions must be restrained and finally given up so that, the egoistic personality is dissolved by losing its habitual supports. Śramanic morality is an ascetic morality of wantlessness which identifies the past life with withdrawal from society. If niggard liness and sterility are held to be the main evil in the Vedic tradition, pleasure-seeking, egoism and violence are the main evils on the Śramanic view.
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