Studies in the Bhagavati Sutra

Author(s): J C Sikdar
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur

Page 639

hin.
614 STUDIES İN THE BHAGAWATI SÚTRA (Ch. XI four orders, viz. Brāhmaṇa, Ksatriya, Grhapati or Vanik (i.e. Vaisya) and the fourth order (i.e. Šūdra) on the basis of distinction of social relationship.
The gradual absorption of various Indian tribes and foreign nationals in the social organization, such as, the Kirātus, Barbaras, (Indian tribes), Pārasīs, Arabīs, Simghalis, Pahlavas, Murundas, etc., (foreign nationals) was one of the most important characteristics of the social evolution of that age, marked by the racial synthesis and the Catholic spirit of the people. So the social organization' was like the federation of castes and sub-castes mixed together and brought into the same spiritual and cultural system. · The Bhs reveals that the spirit of Varņāírama Dharma illustrated itself in the system of the individual life as regulated into four stages of the Vedic texts, viz. Brahmacarya, Gārhasthya, Vänaprastha and Sannyāsa according to the evolving capacity of human life, for spiritualism dominated the individual, social, economic, political, religious and secular aspects of the life of the people of its period.
The BhS presents an account of a social structure consisting Janapada (state), Varna (social order), Jāti (caste), Gotra (origin), Jhāti (kinsmen), Kula (family), Vamía (lineage) and Gähāvai (head of the family, and a picture of wider sphere of family relationship which was extended to the friends, kinsmen, relatives and even to the attendants of the family who were included in its gradation in the larger social circle. A happy relation existed among the different members of the family, friends, kinsmen blood relations and others. The conjugal life of the husband and wife was endowed with mutual love, faith, devotion and honour to each other and the glow of their hearts in work and worship. Between the parents and the son there existed a sweet and happy relation based on their reciprocal love, natural duties and moral obligations called upon by the secular life.
Vide, Ch. V, Sec. 2.
1 Vide, Ch. IV. & Vide, Ch. IV, Sec. 3.
3