Studies in South Indian Jainism

Author(s): M S Ramaswami Ayyangar, B Seshagiri Rao
Publisher: M S Ramaswami Ayyangar

Page 23

BRAHMIN EXCLUSIVENESS.
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them being Jainism, Buddhism and a quite distinct order of monks, the Ajivakas, established by one Gosala, sometime disciple of Mahāvīra. After an existence of some centuries, the order of Ajivakas suffered a total decay in the confusion of religious ideas which then pervaded the country. This institution of monasticism was nothing new to the religious practices of the day. Already the religion of the Hindus, especially the Brahmins, had ordained that every inan. should spend his life in four successive stages called, Asramas. The first stage was that of a Brahmachari or a religious student, the second of a Grahasta or a householder, the third of retirement from active life and the last that of a mendicant or Sanyasi. It however became the custom for a Brahmin, as a rule, to pass through Brahmin ex. four, a nobleman through three, a citizen through two and a sudra through one, of the four Asramas.' This tendency of the Brahmin to limit the entry into the stage of a religious mendicant to those belonging to the Brahminic caste, led to the formation of non-Brahminio orders which, though originally intended for the Kshatriyas, were uitimately thrown open to all castes. Thus Dr. Hoernle":"It is easy to understand that these non-Brahminic orders would not be looked upon by the Sanyasins as quite their.equals, even when they were quite as orthodox as themselves and, on the other hand, that this treatment by the Brahminic ascetics would bzget in their ' Maxmuller, The Hibbert Lec. · Hoernle, Presidential Address. tures, p. 343.
Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1898.
clusiveness.