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VAISHALİ INSTITUTE RESEARCH BULLETIN NO. I
although historians are at loggerheads with one another about the effects of this ideal on the well-being of the society and the political aspirations of a nation. Frazer contends that Oriental religions inculcating asceticism upon the spritual aspirants are essentially and incurably anti-social. “The saint and the recluse”, says he, "disdainful of earth and rapt in ecstatic contemplation of heaven, became in popular opinion the highest ideal of humanity, displacing the old ideal of the patriot and hero who, forgetful of self, lives and is ready to die for the good of his country. The earthly city seemed poor and contemptible to men whose eyes beheld the City of God coming in the clouds of heaven." (Quoted in Toynbee's A Study of History, Abridgement by D. C. Somervell, Oxford University Press, 1960, p. 636). Professor Toynbee, however, disagrees with Frazer. “Society has no existence, “Says he, "except in the activities of individuals who, for their part. cannot exist except in Society. Nor again is there a disharmony between the individual's relations with his fellow men and his relation with God. In the spiritual vision of Primitive Men there is manifestly solidarity between the tribesman and his gods which, so far from alienating the tribesmen from each other, is the strongest of the social bonds between them. The workings of this harmony between Man's duty to God and his duty to his neighbour have been explored and illustrated at the primitive level by Frazer himself, and disintegrating civilizations had borne witness to it when they had sought a new bond for Society in the worship of a deified Ceasar. Is the harmony converted into a discord by the 'higher religions' as Frazer contends ? In theory and in practice alike the answer would be in the negative”. “In seeking God,” he further asserts, "Man is performing a social act; and, if God's love has gone into action in This World in the redemption of Mankind by Christ, then Man's efforts to make himself less unlike a God who created Man in His own image must include efforts to follow Christ's example in sacrificing himself for the redemption of his followmen. The antithesis between trying to save one's own soul by seeking God and trying to do one's duty to one's neighbour is therefore false." (op. cit., pp. 637-8). The Jaina philosopher's doctrine of standpoints (nayas) as applied to the problems of social relations, and the Mahāyāna Buddhist doctrine of bodhisattva as the last soul to attain nirvāṇa confirm the contention of Professor Toynbee The salutary effects of a saint's life on the people and the potentates is too palpable to be gainsaid. Mahavira, Buddha and Saukarācārya were great powers that are to be reckoned with in any assessment of the culture of our country. Professor Toynbee is right when he says about the Christian anchorites
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