Studies in Jainism

Author(s): Ramkrishna Mission Institute of Culture Culcutta
Publisher: Ramkrishna Mission Institute of Culture Culcutta

Page 11

STUDIES IN JAINISM
But, side by side with Buddhism and Jainism, there were other sects having no independent literary documents as their scriptures. They are frequently referred to for criticism by the Buddha and Mahāvira in their discourses. The common features of all these religious bodies were :
(1) They challenged the authority of the Vedas.
(2) They admitted into their Church all members of the community, irrespective of their social rank and religious career (varna and asrama).
(3) They observed a set of ethical principles.
(4) They practised a detached life with a view to liberating themselves from the worldly life etc.
(5) They could take to a life of renunciation (pravrajya) any time after passing over the minor age.
Brahmacarya (the period of Vedic learning) had a quite different connotation for Buddhists and such others, though they preserved the practice of 'begging the food' (bhikṣācarya). Such religious bodies are known to us only through references to their teachers and tenets scattered in the vast literature of the Buddhists and Jains. The religious teachers whom the Buddha described as heretic (titthiya = tirthakara) are : Pūrania Kassapa, Pakudha Kaccāyana, Makkhali Gosāla, Ajita Kesakambalin, Sañjaya Belatthiputta, and Nigantha Nataputta. .
We shall deal here only with those teachers of sects, other than Buddhism and Jainism, who are less known. The following brief account of their views can be gathered from the Jaina and Buddhist literature, which, however, may not always represent their best side.
I. PŪRANA KASSAPA (THE SECT OF AKRIYAVADINS)
We learn from the Buddhist records that Pūraņa Kassapa (Pūrņa Kāśyapa) was an old and respectable
3. We have another list in the Anguttara Nikāya which mentions ten
neretic sects by their collective names : Ālīvika, Nigantha. Mundasavaka, Jațilaka, Paribbajaka, Magandika, Tedandika, Aviruddhaka, Gotamaka, and Devadhammika-Rhys Davids Dialogues of the Buddha (Sacred Books of the Buddhists, 1923), I. p.220.