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616
STUDIES IN THE BHAGAWATI SŪTRA
Cb. XI
account of various kinds of sports and amusements, manners and customs of the people.
The Bhs throws much light upon different aspects of the economic conditions of the people. In the social economy agriculture was the most natural and necessary occupation adopted by the major section of the population, while there flourished side by side various kinds of arts and crafts, trade and commerce, and banking business, organized by the private and collective enterprise of the economic guild but partially controlled by the state.
In regard to the general economic conditions of the society it reveals that there was a small number of rich persons in comparison with the economic standard of the people of those days and that of the present time. A current of poverty flowed beneath the surface of much opulence of the social wealth and prosperity, as it is evidenced by the fact of the existence of the houseless family of Mankha-mankhali and Bhadrā, the parents of Gośāla.
The Bhs throws an important light upon the ethics of Economics by revealing the fact that the human desire is the main factor of the economic life which is guided by the instinct of possession, and the forces of desire and the material enjoyments tie human-life to the worldly attachments and lead one to the mad lust for wealth at the cost of others and to the consequent sufferings, because Nature has set some limit to his demands. Moreover, wealth is non-permanent and belongs to fire, king, thief and sons. So this canonical work advocates the principle of non-possession (aparigraha), one of the five great vows of Sramana-Nirgrantha-Dharna preached by Lord Mahāvīra.
As regards education the BhS reveals that it was based on the unity of thought and action, knowledge, right attitude and right conduct and the attainment of liberation by intellect (sight) and action (kriyā or sharpness). The system of education was academic and vocational as organized to impart teachings in
i Vide, Ch. IV, Seç. 8.
: Vide Ch. V.
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