Studies in the Bhagavati Sutra

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

Page 642

Sec. II]
STUDIES IN THE BHAGAWATI SŪTRA
617
general as well as special branches of knowledge and also in the law. So it incorporated into the course of studies--Itihāsa (History), Vyàkarana (Grammar) and Chanda (Metre) in order to achieve the first objective and imparted education in Medical Science, Botany, Zoology, Astronomy, Astrology, Mathematics, Military Science, Art of warfare, and Fine Arts, etc., to attain the second, and the Vedas and other religious and philosophical treatises like the Angas, etc., to provide knowledge in their doctrines and spiritualism. So a balance was maintained to make an individual a worthy member of the society. The principles of truth, the social and moral elevation of men and women, the development of the spoken language, science and arts and the democratization of learning without any social bar to the caste or sex were the remarkable features of the system of education as reflected in the text.
There was the spiritual background of this education which made itself realize that the human life and body and material enjoyment of objects of Nature were transitory and belonged to the mundane world and the soul to that of the spiritual. This conception of education governed both the individual and social life and conduct, developed personality and held the noble ideal of liberation before the people.
It is of great historical value that the BhS reveals the religious conditions of its period by furnishing a good deal of informations regarding the existence of various leaders of thought and their activities and systems of religion, obscure cults and the life and teachings of heterodox sects in a manner of unsympathetic criticism of one sect against the other in their relation to Sramana Nirgrantha Dharma. But this way of presentation of the religious firmament has brought to light the half-known and unknown life of those sects with historicity. Of the hetrodox sects the Ajivikas under the spiritual leadership of Gośāla, Vainayikas, Vānaprasthas, Parivrājakas, Carakas and other Tirthikas, etc., come in the lime light along with the followers of Lord Pārsvanātha and the Nirgranthas under Lord Mahāvīra.
1 Vide, Ch. VII, 78