Study in the Origins and Development of Jainism

Author(s): S N Shrivastava
Publisher: Rekha Publication Gorakhpur

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A Study in the Origins and Development of Jainism
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context, growing rituatism in Brāhmaṇical tradition, violence in Vedic sacrifices, damaging animal power which was greatly needed for cultivation, monopoly of the Brāhmaṇas over religious and ritualistic activities, Brāhmaṇa-Kshatriya rivalry for spiritual supremacy were, inter alia, some of the facts overwhich attention was paid. These factors were sufficient to convince these scholars that the existing orthodox view of life and ethos was no longer satisfying to the urges and aspirations of some sensitive men, in particular, and a section of people, in general, in changed circumstances. Search for alternative view of life, new ethos and values began which resulted into the emergence of a number of new ideologies of which Jainism, Buddhism and Ājīvikism were most important.
So for as the origins of Buddhism and Ājīvikism are concerned, the facts and arguments pointed out above are highly enlightening and convincing to a great extent, though the textures of historical constructions by different historians are not identical. But the same can not be said to be true about Jainism. It appears that there was a specific socio-cultural milieu in which Jainism grew and developed and we shall dwell upon it a little later.
It is significant to note that the changed situations in the first half of the first millennium B. C. provided the congenial atmosphere for the proliferation and growth of pre-existing Śramana tradition. We have seen earlier that the antiquity of the Śramaṇa tradition may be traced back to the Vedic and pre-Vedic times. Of the several sects of the Śramana tradition Jainism is the oldest. Mahāvīra, who flourished in the sixth cent. B. C., was the twenty fourth Tirthankara. According to Jain tradition as preserved in the Jain literature twenty three Tirthankara existed before Mahāvīra. Of these the historicity of Parsvanatha, the twenty third Tirthankara, has been convincingly established by Hermann Jacoby. If