The legendary founder of Jainism was called Rishabha,
but claims
that he lived many millions of years ago are obviously exaggerated.
This first Tirthankara (literally "maker of the river-crossing")
is said to have invented
cooking, writing, pottery, painting,
and sculpture,
the institution of marriage and ceremonies for
the dead.
Not much else is recorded about Rishabha and the next
twenty Tirthankaras,
but the ancient Jaina tradition that there
were ascetic religious teachers in India
before the coming of
the Vedic Aryans is likely
from evidence found in the Harappan
culture.
The twenty-second Tirthankara, Arishtanemi, is mentioned in
the Kalpa Sutra.
All of the Tirthankaras were Kshatriyas,
and Arishtanemi was the son of King Ashvasena
of Varanasi (Benares)
and cousin of Krishna,
who is supposed to have lived during the
great Bharata war probably about 900 BC.
According to legend Krishna
negotiated his marriage to princess Rajamati.
However, when Arishtanemi
discovered the great number of deer and other animals
to be sacrificed
at his wedding, he changed his mind to prevent their slaughter,
brooded over the cruelty and violence of human society,
and soon
renounced the world to seek and find enlightenment.
The twenty-third Tirthankara, Parshva, probably lived in the
eighth century BC.
Legends connect him with snakes, one of whom
he saved from fire
when a Brahmin ascetic was about to burn a
log where it was hiding.
He married a princess, and up to the
age of thirty he lived in great splendor
and happiness as a householder.
Then he gave up all his wealth to become an ascetic.
After 84
days of intense meditation he became enlightened
and taught as
a saint for seventy years.
Parshva was called "Beloved" and organized an order
(samgha) of monks, nuns,
and lay votaries of many thousands,
though the numbers are probably exaggerated.
He had eight or ten
disciples (ganadharas) according to different sources.
His religion was open to all without distinction of caste or creed,
and women were a large part of the order.
He allowed his followers
to wear an upper and lower garment.
The main emphasis of Parshva was on the first vow of non-injury
(ahimsa)
or abstinence from killing any living beings.
The other three vows Parshva required were truthfulness, not to
steal,
and freedom from possession.
These vows are exactly the
same as the first four vows of the sannyasins
of the Vedic tradition
who renounce the world.
The Brahmanic fifth vow of liberality
could not be practiced
by mendicants without possessions.
Two centuries later during the life of Mahavira there were
still followers of Parshva,
and they are mentioned in Buddhist
texts as well as in Jaina scriptures.
In addition to Brahmanical
sects of ascetics like those described in the Upanishads
who acknowledged the authority of the Vedas, new shramana
(ascetic) sects
were appearing which challenged the Vedas
and their rituals, emphasizing ethics
and allowing those of any
caste and women to renounce the world as well.
Before turning to Mahavira and the Buddha,
let us briefly examine a few
of the other teachers who appeared
in India in that spiritually rich sixth century BC.
Purana Kassapa
was a respected teacher who promulgated a no-action theory (akriyavada).
Once he explained to King Ajatashatru that there is no guilt for
causing grief
or torment or killing, robbing, etc., and no merit
for offering sacrifices, self-mastery,
or speaking truth; because
the soul is passive, no action can affect it.
Nothing can defile
one nor purify one.
Purana Kassapa claimed that only an infinite
mind could comprehend a finite world,
and it was said that he
could perceive anything.
The Buddha even credited Kassapa and
other heretical teachers with the ability
to know where a particular
dead person was reborn.
Another esteemed religious leader was Pakudha Katyayana, who
may have been
the one who asked Pippalada in the Prashna
Upanishad about the roots of things.
His doctrine classified
everything into seven categories:
earth, water, fire, air, pleasure,
pain, and soul, all of which are eternal.
Like Kassapa, Katyayana
denied the reality of action, asserting that the soul is superior
to good and evil and untouched by any change.
His doctrine was
called Eternalism by Mahavira and the Buddha,
who both considered it another theory of non-action.
The founder of materialism in India was Ajita Keshakambalin.
He found no merit in sacrificing or offering or doing good either,
because nothing exists but the material world—no other world,
no afterlife
no benefit from service, no ascetics who have attained
enlightenment or perfection.
When a person dies, the body returns
to earth, fluids to water, heat to fire,
and breath to air, the
senses into space, and no individuality remains.
He criticized
the view of Katyayana and others that
the soul existed independently
of the body.
Ajita saw the individual as a whole, which the apprehending
mind can conceive.
Mahavira criticized Ajita's philosophy for
encouraging people to kill, burn, destroy,
and enjoy the pleasures
of life, but actually Ajita taught people to respect life and
honor
the living while they are alive rather than death and those
who are dead.
The leader of the agnostics (Ajnanavada) was Sanjaya
Belatthiputta.
He found so many contradictory views of the soul
and body current that
he believed it was better to realize that
one is ignorant of these things
than to adopt one folly or another.
His followers were described as wriggling out of answering questions
like an eel
and were criticized by Jainas for walking around in
ignorance.
However, in disregarding speculative questions he did
attempt to focus the attention
of his many followers on the attainment
and preservation of mental equanimity.
Sanjaya may have prepared
the way for Mahavira's doctrine of antinomies (syadvada)
and the Buddha's method of critical investigation (vibhajyavada),
for they both found that there could be no final answers to some
of the difficult
questions of cosmology, ontology, theology, and
eschatology.
The leader of the Ajivaka sect at this time, Mankhali Gosala,
became closely associated with Mahavira.
Gosala traveled with
Mahavira for six years, but then he left because of
doctrinal
differences and was the leader of the Ajivaka sect for sixteen
years in Savatthi
at the pottery workshop of the woman Halahala.
Gosala taught a theory of transformation through re-animation
like the seeds of plants.
Humans are purified through transmigration,
and the complete cycle of reincarnation
periods is said to be
eighty-four hundred thousand,
possibly the origin of the term
"wheel of eighty-four."
He believed that everything
was pre-destined, and nothing could change fate.
Thus he denied
the usefulness of effort or manly vigor, rationalizing that these,
like all things, are unalterably fixed and predetermined.
Everything
acts according to its own nature,
and nature is a self-evolving
activity making things come to pass and cease to be.
Gosala believed that karma is independent of individual will
and follows its own logic.
He categorized humanity into six groups
and put himself
with only two other individuals in the "supremely
white" category.
He described eight stages of life from babyhood
to renunciation,
and his followers practiced the fourfold discipline
of asceticism,
austerity, comfort-loathing, and solitude.
Although
criticized by Jainas and Buddhists as amoral, Gosala taught that
although it was predetermined, it was still one's duty to be lawful,
not trespass on other's rights, make full use of one's liberties,
be considerate, pure,
abstain from killing, be free from earthly
possessions, reduce the necessities of life,
and strive for the
best and highest of human potential.
Aside from the determinism
one can find many similarities
in the teachings of Gosala and
Mahavira.
They divided living beings into the same six categories,
and both recommended nudity
for the saints and believed in the
omniscience of the released.
Mahavira was born in Kundapura near Vaishali.
The traditional
Jaina date for Mahavira's birth is 599 BC, but comparison with
the
life of Buddha and the Magadha kings Bimbisara and Ajatashatru
indicate that his
death at the age of 72 was probably about 490
BC.
An elaborate legend is told in the Acharanga Sutra
and in the Kalpa Sutra
how he was conceived in the womb
of the Brahmin Devananda,
who had fourteen prophetic dreams but
then after three lunar cycles divinely transferred
to the womb
of the Kshatriya Trishala, who also had the same fourteen prophetic
dreams.
These fourteen dreams are supposed to indicate that
the
child will become either an emperor or a great Tirthankara (prophet).
This unbelievable story probably resulted from the Jaina tradition
that all the
Tirthankaras were Kshatriyas, perhaps converting
his stepmother into a second mother.
The father of Mahavira was King Siddartha;
he and Trishala
were both pious and virtuous followers of Parshva.
Trishala was
the sister of King Chetaka of Vaishali, the capital of a federation
where the Jainism of Parshva was popular.
King Chetaka had seven
daughters, one of whom was initiated into the Jaina order
of ascetics
while the other six married famous kings, including King Shrenika
(Bimbisara)
of Magadha and Mahavira's own brother, Nandivardhana.
Since the wealth of his father's kingdom had increased during
the pregnancy,
the child was called Vardhamana.
He was raised
in princely opulence and showed his courage as a child by mounting
a charging elephant by the trunk and on another occasion
picking
up a large snake and casting it aside.
For his courage and self-control
in enduring the rules of penance,
Vardhamana was given the name
Mahavira, which means "great hero."
Jaina comes from jina
meaning victor or conqueror.
He probably received the usual education
for an aristocrat in philosophy,
literature, military and administrative
sciences, and the arts.
Mahavira married a princess named Yasoda, and they had a daughter,
Anojja.
She eventually married his nephew Jamali, who later caused
a schism in the order.
When Mahavira was 28 years old, both his
parents died.
He wanted to renounce the world; but to please his
elder brother
he agreed to live at home for two more years during
which he practiced self-discipline,
giving up all luxuries and
giving charity to beggars every day of the last year.
At the age of thirty Mahavira renounced all his wealth, property,
wife, family, relatives, and pleasures.
In a garden of the village
Kundapura at the foot of an Ashoka tree,
no one else being present,
after fasting two days without water he took off all his clothes,
tore out the hair of his head in five handfuls,
and put a single
cloth on his shoulder.
He vowed to neglect his body and with equanimity
to suffer
all calamities arising from divine powers, people, or
animals.
Having already attained before marriage the first three
levels of knowledge
(knowledge from the senses and mind, knowledge
from study, and knowledge from intuition),
at this initiation
it was said he attained the fourth level of knowledge
that includes
the psychological movements of all sentient beings.
Thus Mahavira became homeless.
As he was leaving the garden,
a Brahmin beggar, who had missed out on the last year
of Mahavira's
almsgiving, asked him for alms;
he gave him half of the garment
on his shoulder.
After thirteen months he gave up clothes altogether.
Neglecting his body, the venerable ascetic Mahavira meditated on his self,
in blameless lodgings and wandering, in restraint, kindness, avoidance of sinful influence,
chaste life, in patience, freedom from passion, contentment; practicing control,
circumspectness, religious postures and acts; walking the path of nirvana and liberation,
which is the fruit of good conduct.
Living thus he with equanimity bore, endured, sustained, and suffered all calamities
arising from divine powers, men, and animals,
with undisturbed and unafflicted mind, careful of body, speech, and mind.1
After a few months of wandering Mahavira went to an ashram
in Moraga,
where he was invited to spend the four-month rainy
season by its abbot
who was a friend of his father.
Mahavira was
assigned a hut with a thatched roof.
The previous summer had been
so hot that the grass in the forest was destroyed,
and the cattle
ran to eat the ascetics' grass huts.
The other ascetics beat off
the cattle, but Mahavira just let the cattle eat the thatched
roof.
The ascetics complained to the abbot, and so Mahavira decided
to leave the ashram and spent the rainy season in the village
of Ashtika.
Reflecting upon this experience, Mahavira resolved to follow
the fivefold discipline
of never living in the house of an unfriendly
person,
usually standing with the body like a statue (kayostarga),
generally maintaining silence,
eating out of his hand as a dish,
and not showing politeness to householders.
Thus he practiced
meditation and severe austerities.
In the summer he would meditate
in the sun or walk through sun-baked fields,
and in winter he
would meditate naked in the open air.
Each year during the rainy
season he stayed in one place.
He walked quietly, carefully keeping
his eyes on the ground
so as to avoid stepping on any insects.
He stayed in deserted houses, crematoriums, gardens, or any solitary
place.
What little food he ate he got from begging.
If he saw any
other beggar, animal or bird waiting for food at a house,
he would
silently pass by to another house.
He fasted for fifteen days
at a time and up to a month.
He passed the second rainy season
at Nalanda, where he met Gosala,
who was impressed by Mahavira
and joined him.
Traveling with Gosala, his fasts now extended
as long as two months.
According to Jaina biographies of Mahavira,
Gosala often insulted others and misbehaved,
while Mahavira remained silent and still (in kayostarga).
This brought upon them
abusive behavior.
In Choraga of Bengal they were taken for spies and imprisoned.
Another time they were both tied up and beaten.
In Kuiya they
were once again imprisoned as spies
but were released at the behest
of two sisters.
In the sixth year Gosala left Mahavira for six
months;
but he returned until the tenth year when he left Mahavira
and proclaimed himself
a prophet and leader of the Ajivika sect.
Mahavira went to Vaishali where the republican chief
Sankha rescued
him from trouble caused by local children.
In the eleventh year Mahavira was tested by a god named Samgamaka,
who gave him terrible physical pain, accompanied him begging,
and contaminated his food.
Mahavira gave up begging and sat in
meditation.
For six months Samgamaka inflicted tortures on him,
but unable to disturb him
he finally fell at his feet and begged
his forgiveness before returning to his own place.
Government
officials in Tosali took Mahavira for a thief
and tried to hang
him, but he was rescued in time.
In the twelfth year Mahavira took a vow that he would fast
until an enslaved princess
with a shaven head and fettered feet,
in tears and tired after three days fasting,
would lean out a
window and offer him boiled pulse.
It was five months and twenty-five
days before such an event occurred in Champa.
While in this town
a Brahmin questioned him about the soul and its characteristics.
Mahavira explained that what one understands by the word "I"
is the soul.
In Chammani a bull strayed while grazing, and a cowherd asked
Mahavira about it.
Met with silence, the cowherd became enraged
and pushed grass sticks into Mahavira's ears.
Remaining peaceful
and undisturbed, Mahavira continued his wanderings
until eventually
a physician noticed the condition, removed the painful plugs from
his ears,
and cured the wound with medicine.
Seeking the highest
enlightenment, Mahavira meditated
for six months sitting motionless,
but he failed.
He did penance in a cemetery when Rudra and his
wife tried to interrupt him.
Finally in the thirteenth year of this ascetic life while meditating
after two and a half days
of waterless fasting, Mahavira attained
nirvana and the highest awareness
called kevala or absolute
knowledge.
The first message of Mahavira after his enlightenment
is recorded
in the Buddhist text Majjhima Nikaya:
I am all-knowing and all-seeing, and possessed of an infinite knowledge.
Whether I am walking or standing still, whether I sleep or remain awake,
the supreme knowledge and intuition are present with me—constantly and continuously.
There are, O Nirgranthas, some sinful acts you have done in the past,
which you must now wear out by this acute form of austerity.
Now that here you will be living restrained in regard to your acts, speech and thought,
it will work as the nondoing of karma for future.
Thus, by the exhaustion of the force of past deeds through penance
and the non-accumulation of new acts, (you are assured)
of the stoppage of the future course, of rebirth from such stoppage,
of the destruction of the effect of karma, from that, of the destruction of pain,
from that, of the destruction of mental feelings, and from that,
of the complete wearing out of all kinds of pain.2
After attaining omniscience Mahavira attended a religious conference
by the river Ijjuvaliya,
but his first discourse had little effect.
Then he traveled to another conference in the garden of Mahasena,
where in a long discussion he converted eleven learned Brahmins,
who had gone there to sacrifice.
Breaking the tradition of speaking
in Sanskrit, Mahavira spoke in the Ardhamagadhi dialect,
and all
the Jaina Agama scriptures are written in Ardhamagadhi.
Hearing of a magician, the Brahmin Indrabhuti Gautama went
to expose him;
but as he approached the garden, Mahavira called
him by name and reading his mind,
said, "Gautama, you have
a doubt in your mind about the existence of the soul."
Then
Mahavira explained how to interpret a passage in the Vedas
so as to understand that, although categories of knowledge may
disappear,
this does not affect the existence of the soul.
This
mind-reading and wisdom convinced Indrabhuti of the omniscience
of Mahavira.
After hearing Mahavira's discourse on his essential
teachings,
Indrabhuti decided to renounce the world and was initiated
by Mahavira into the religion.
Having heard of his brother's defeat by Mahavira,
Agnibhuti
Gautama came to debate with Mahavira; but he too, won over
by
Mahavira's
explanation of the reality of karma and the soul's
bondage to it, also became initiated.
According to tradition nine
more scholars argued with Mahavira and were converted,
becoming
his eleven disciples.
Jaina tradition also claims that these eleven
brought along 4400 of their pupils into the new faith.
Then Mahavira wandered in silence for sixty-six days until
he reached Rajagriha,
the capital of the powerful state Magadha.
King Shrenika (Bimbisara) and his family attended,
and he received
satisfactory answers to his questions.
Indrabhuti was quite learned
and vain; but when an old man came to him for
an explanation of
a sloka Mahavira had quoted before becoming lost in meditation,
Indrabhuti could not explain it.
When Mahavira explained it, all
of Indrabhuti's pride fell away
in the presence of the great ascetic.
Mahavira organized his order into four groups of monks, nuns,
male householders,
and female householders.
All those initiated
had to take the five vows, which included the four vows of Parshva
(nonviolence, truthfulness, non-stealing, and non-possession)
plus chastity.
After spending the rainy season at Rajagriha, Mahavira
went to Vaishali,
where he initiated his daughter and son-in-law
Jamali
and spent the next year's monsoon season.
Perceiving telepathically
that the king of Sindhu-sauvira wanted to meet him,
Mahavira traveled
there and initiated King Rudrayana into the religion of the Shramanas.
Returning from this long journey through the desert of Sindhu,
they suffered from lack of food and water but remained indifferent.
At Benares a multi-millionaire and his wife were converted.
Spending
two more rainy seasons in Rajagriha twenty-five of King Shrenika's
sons
were initiated into the Shramana community.
It was recorded
that Ardraka Kumara, a non-Aryan prince, who knew his past births,
traveled to Mahavira to join his order and on his way defeated
in argument
Gosala, Vedic Brahmins, and other ascetics.
At Kaushambi Mahavira converted King Prodyota and several queens,
who were admitted into the order of nuns.
After spending a rainy
season at Vaishali he went back to Rajagriha,
where he converted
many followers of Parshva's religion who adopted the fifth vow
of the Shramana community as well.
Later he convinced Keshi Kumara,
the leader of the Parshva religion,
that he was the 24th Tirthankara,
and Keshi brought his disciples into the new order.
A few years
later his son-in-law Jamali left the Shramana order with his disciples
to form the Vahurata sect; but it was not successful,
and most
of his disciples returned to Mahavira's order.
A dispute arose when Mahavira said that Gosala was not omniscient.
Hearing of it and approaching Mahavira, Gosala tried to explain
to him
that he was no longer his disciple, because he was a different
soul,
who had entered Gosala's body and founded a new religion.
Mahavira asked why he was vainly trying to conceal his identity.
The irate Gosala swore at him and abused two of the Jaina monks,
according to tradition destroying them,
although Mahavira had
warned them not to argue with Gosala.
However, the negative energy
that Gosala aimed at Mahavira returned to himself.
He said that
he would cause Mahavira to die of a fever in six months.
Mahavira
replied that he would live on, but that Gosala would be struck
by his own magical power and die from fever in seven days, which
came to pass.
Mahavira outlived Gosala by sixteen years,
but the
Ajivika sect Gosala founded lasted for many centuries.
When Kunika (Ajatashatru) forcibly took over his father's kingdom
of Magadha,
he moved the capital to Champa, where many princes
and townspeople adopted Mahavira's religion.
Although Ajatashatru
liked to listen to Mahavira, it did not stop him from gathering
a large army and allies to attack and defeat the Vaishali confederacy
in a major war that killed King Chetaka.
Finally at the age of 72 Mahavira left his body and attained
nirvana,
liberated and rid of all karma, never to return again.
His first disciple, Indrabhuti Gautama, died also at dawn the
next morning.
According to Jaina tradition nine of the eleven disciples attained
the highest knowledge
of kevala during Mahavira's lifetime,
usually many years before their nirvana and final death.
Indrabhuti
Gautama, the first disciple, attained kevala and nirvana
the same night Mahavira died.
The other disciple, Sudharma, became
the leader of the Nirgrantha community
(Nirgrantha means unfettered
ones.) and attained kevala knowledge after
twelve more
years and died eight years later at the age of one hundred.
Thus
Sudharma led the Order (Samgha) for twenty years and was
succeeded
by Arya Jambu Swamy, who had been initiated at the age
of 16,
attained kevala knowledge twenty years later, and
directed the community
until his nirvana death when he was 80.
According to Jaina tradition he is the last person to have attained
omniscience and nirvana.
The essential metaphysical ideas of Jainism are nine cardinal
principles.
The universe is divided into that which is alive and
conscious (jiva)
and matter which is not (ajiva).
Jivas (souls) are either caught by karma (action) in the
world of reincarnation (samsara)
or liberated (mukta)
and perfected (siddha).
Though their number is infinite,
jivas are individuals
and each potentially infinite in
awareness, power, and bliss.
Matter (ajiva) is made up
of eternal atoms in time and space
which can be moved and stopped.
The other seven principles explain the workings of karma and
the soul's liberation from it.
The soul (jiva) is attracted
to sense-objects by the principle of ashrava
which leads
to the bondage (bandha) of the soul by karma, which covers
up
and limits the soul's natural abilities to know and perceive
in its blissful state,
resulting in delusions and a succession
of births.
The next two principles are virtue (punya) and
vice (papa) by which
all karma either works beneficially
toward liberation or negatively toward bondage.
The seventh principle samvara is how the soul prevents
ashrava (the influx of karma)
by watchfulness and self-discipline
of mind, speech, and body.
This eventually leads to nirjara,
the elimination of karma.
Finally moksha or liberation
is attained.
In one's last life at death, nirvana (literally "being
extinguished") describes the end
of worldly existence for
the soul, which then rises to the highest heaven.
Although Jainas believe that souls may have some lives as gods
and goddesses
in heavenly worlds or suffer in hell and become
demon-like,
there is no total God lifting up souls or punishing
them in hell.
Rather each individual jiva is responsible
for itself and completely determines its own destiny,
although
these jivas do have the divine attributes of infinite knowledge,
power, and bliss.
This doctrine of individual responsibility makes
Jainism a primarily ethical religion,
as does the severity of
their five vows of nonviolence, truthfulness,
non-stealing, chastity,
and non-possession.
Ahimsa (nonviolence) means not injuring any living thing
in any way,
and the Jainas took it very seriously.
Injuring an
animal or causing anyone to do so was considered a sin.
This meant
walking carefully so as not to injure even the tiniest creatures.
The mind had to be watched to prevent thoughts and intentions
that might lead to quarrels, faults, pain, or any kind of injury.
Similarly one's speech had to be carefully monitored.
The Jaina
must be careful in laying down their begging utensils so as not
to hurt a living being,
and food and water must be carefully inspected
to make sure no living things are hurt or displaced.
As with nonviolence one must not speak any lies nor cause any
lies
to be spoken nor consent to any lies being spoken.
Thus the
Nirgrantha (Jaina) speaks only after deliberation and renounces
anger, greed, fear, and mirth so that no falsehoods will be uttered.
This vow combined with nonhurting (ahimsa) meant that speech
must be pleasant
and not painful or insulting in any way.
Silence
as a discipline was observed most of the time.
Non-stealing means that nothing must be taken that is not freely
given.
Thus the Nirgrantha begs only after deliberation and according
to strict rules,
consumes food and drink only after permission
is granted, occupies only
limited ground for short periods of
time, continually renewing the grant to be there.
Chastity is the renunciation of all sensual pleasures.
To achieve
this discipline monks do not discuss women nor contemplate
their
lovely forms nor recall previously enjoyed pleasures nor occupy
a bed or couch
used by women, animals, or eunuchs.
A Nirgrantha
does not eat and drink too much nor drink liquor nor eat highly
seasoned food.
Finally all attachments must be renounced, even to the delight
in agreeable sounds
or being disturbed by disagreeable ones.
Similarly
with all the five senses, one may not be able to avoid all experiences,
but one is not to be attached to the agreeable ones, for those
who acquiesce
and indulge in worldly pleasures are born again
and again.
By these disciplines the wise avoid wrath, pride, deceit,
greed, love, hate, delusion,
conception, birth, death, hell, animal
existence, and pain.
In order to find liberation four things must be attained:
human
birth, instruction in the teachings, belief in them, and energy
in self-control.
This meant freeing oneself from family bonds,
giving up acts and attachments,
and living self-controlled towards
the eternal.
Collecting alms one may be insulted and despised,
but the wise with undisturbed mind
sustains their insults and
blows, like an elephant in battle with arrows,
and is not shaken
any more than a rock is by the wind.
The sage lives detached from
pleasure and pain, not hurting and not killing;
bearing all, one's
luster increases like a burning flame as one conquers desires
and meditates on the supremacy of virtue, though suffering pain.
The great vows, which are a place of peace, the great teachers,
and the producers
of detachment have been proclaimed by the infinite
victor (Jina), the knowing one,
as light illuminating the
three worlds (earth, heaven, and hell).
The unfettered one living
among the bound should be a beggar, unattached to women,
and speak
with reverence, not desiring this or the next world.
The dirt
of former sins committed by a liberated mendicant walking in wisdom,
who is constant and bears pain, vanishes like the tarnish from
silver in the fire.
Free from desire with conquered sensuality,
one is freed from the bed of pain
like a snake casts off its skin.
Renouncing the world, the sage is called "the maker of the
end,"
for that one has quit the path of births.
The soul cannot be apprehended by the senses,
because it possesses
no corporeal form and thus is eternal.
The fetters on the soul
are caused by bad qualities, which cause worldly existence.
The
golden rule is a part of the Jaina teachings and is extended to
all living beings:
Having mastered the teachings and got rid of carelessness, one should live on allowed food,
and treat all beings as one oneself would be treated;
one should not expose oneself to guilt by one's desire for life;
a monk who performs austerities should not keep any store.3
Once a disciple of Parshva, the 23rd Tirthankara,
asked Gautama
why Mahavira taught five vows instead of four.
Earlier chastity
was practiced as part of non-possession or detachment,
but Keshi
also explained that the first saints were simple and slow of understanding;
they could practice the teachings better than they could understand
them.
The last saints were prevaricating and slow of understanding;
though they might understand them, they had difficulty practicing
them.
Those in between were simple and wise; they easily understood
and practiced them.
The three gems of Jainism are right attitude, right knowledge,
and right conduct.
The right attitude takes an unbiased approach,
believes in the nine essential principles,
and uses discriminating
perception.
Right knowledge proceeds through the five stages of
sense perception, study, intuition,
clairvoyance, and omniscience (kevala).
Right conduct or character comes from self-discipline,
renunciation,
and pure conduct in practicing the five major vows.
The rationale for self-discipline is explained in the Uttaradhyayana
Subdue yourself, for the self is difficult to subdue; if your self is subdued,
you will be happy in this world and the next.
Better it is that I should subdue myself by self-control and penance,
than be subdued by others with fetters and corporal punishment.4
The rules for walking, sitting, begging for food, and evacuating
one's bowels were very strict.
In order to avoid causing anyone
else even to do injury in preparing food, for example,
monks must
not accept food that is especially prepared for them.
The monk
must not encourage a lay person to give alms by playing with their
children,
giving information, praising charity, declaring one's
family, expatiating on one's misery,
curing the sick, threatening,
showing one's learning, and so on.
Attending a sacrifice performed by a Brahmin, a sage named
Jayaghosha explained that
a true Brahmin is one who has no worldly
attachment, who does not repent being a monk,
who delights in
noble words, who is exempt from love, hate, and fear,
who subdues
oneself and reaches nirvana, who thoroughly knows living beings
and does not injure them, who speaks no untruth from anger or
fun or greed or fear,
who does not take anything that is not given,
who does not love carnally divine, human,
or animal beings in
thought, words, or action, who is undefiled by pleasure
as a lotus
growing in water is unwetted, who is not greedy, lives unknown
with no house
or property or friendship with householders,
who
has given up
former connections with relations, and who is not
given to pleasure.
Showing that character and actions are more important to what
one is
than outward symbols or birth and color in regard to caste,
Jayaghosha declared,
The binding of animals, all the Vedas, and sacrifices, being causes of sin,
cannot save the sinner; for one's works are very powerful.
One does not become a Shramana by the tonsure, nor a Brahmin
by the sacred syllable aum, nor a Muni by living in the woods,
nor a Tapasa by wearing kusha-grass and bark.
One becomes a Shramana by equanimity, a Brahmin by chastity,
a Muni by knowledge, and a Tapasa by penance.
By one's actions one becomes a Brahmin or a Kshatriya or a Vaisya or a Sudra.5
Then Jayaghosha warned the Brahmin that there is a kind of
glue in pleasure.
Those who are not given to pleasure are not
soiled by it, but those who love pleasures
wander around in Samsara
(reincarnation) and are not liberated.
He said that if you take
two clods of clay, one wet and one dry,
and fling them against
the wall, the wet one will stick to it.
So the foolish are fastened
to karma by their pleasures;
but the dispassionate are not, just
as the dry clay does not stick to the wall.
Mahavira's theory of knowledge (syadvada) is relativistic
and tentative to allow for
the relativity of this world.
Anything
may be or not be or be indescribable
or any combination of these
to allow for various perspectives.
Mahavira taught 73 methods for exertion in goodness by which
many creatures,
who believed in and accepted them, studied, learned,
understood, and practiced them,
and acted according to them, obtained
perfection, enlightenment, deliverance, beatitude,
and an end
to all misery.
Briefly they are: longing for liberation, disregard
of worldly objects, faith in the law,
obedience to other monks
and the guru, confession of sins, repenting to oneself and the
guru,
moral purity, adoration of the 24 Jinas, expiation, meditating
without moving the body,
self-denial, praises and hymns, time
discipline, penance, asking forgiveness, study, recitation,
questioning,
repetition, pondering, discourse, sacred knowledge, concentration,
control,
austerity, cutting off karma, renouncing pleasure, mental
independence,
using unfrequented lodgings, turning from the world,
not collecting alms in only one district,
renouncing useful articles,
renouncing food, overcoming desires, renouncing activity
and the
body and company, final renunciation, conforming to the standard,
doing service,
fulfilling all virtues, freedom from passion, patience,
freedom from greed, simplicity,
humility, sincerity of mind and
religious practice and action, watchfulness of mind
and speech
and body, discipline of mind and speech and body, possession of
knowledge
and faith and conduct, subduing the five senses, conquering
anger and pride and deceit
and greed and wrong belief, stability,
and freedom from karma.
In disciplining the mind, speech, and body, Jainas often stood
in one position for a long time.
Meditation might focus on such
thoughts as the impermanence of worldly things,
human helplessness,
transitory quality of human relations, aloneness,
separateness
of the conscious soul from the unconscious body, the impurity
of the body,
how attachment binds the soul by karma, how good
thoughts may release the soul,
how karma may be eliminated, the
difficulty of attaining perfection,
and how the teachings may
save one.
Mahavira's travels spread Jainism to various parts of northern
India,
and later migrations of monks enabled the religion to take
hold in most of India.
A poetic work on the rules of behavior
for monks by Arya Sayyambhava
written about 400 BC expresses concern
that an act might
"undermine the prestige of the Jaina order."6
This lapse of humility, one of the main virtues emphasized in
this work,
does indicate that Jainism was very likely respected
by many.
The examples of these extremely conscientious ascetics
surely must have had their affect
on people wherever they went;
since they were homeless, they traveled constantly.
Though they seem to have argued over doctrinal differences,
no major schism occurred in the religion until the first century
CE,
and that was only over whether monks ought to go naked
or
whether they could wear a garment.
In evaluating the ethics of Jainism we must keep in mind that
the ascetic monks and nuns
were probably far outnumbered by the
householders,
who practiced a minor version of the five vows.
The primary goal of those who have renounced the world is spiritual
liberation (moksha)
from the wheel of reincarnation (samsara).
Thus their lives were essentially motivated by this intention
of removing their souls from the world.
Though they lived lightly
on the Earth, using as little of its resources as possible,
they
were still dependent on lay people for their meager survival needs.
The complete focus on this other-worldly goal does seem to prevent
them from
contributing much to society except their example of
self-discipline
and possibly some teaching.
Yet the lay people, who practiced Jainism while earning a living
and providing for their families, were contributing to society
while doing their best
not to harm others or any living creature.
Thus they were vegetarians and, if true to the teachings, lived
profoundly ethical lives.
Although they provided examples of peace,
Jainas often supported the wars
that were common in ancient India.
Their individual ethic somehow was not able to expand into a larger
social ethic
to convert society as a whole to the nonviolence
they practiced as individuals.
The extremity of their ascetic disciplines seems to have disregarded
personal pleasures
and happiness so much that the religion never
became
as popular as Hinduism or Buddhism,
although it managed
to persist in substantial numbers.
Jainism has contributed a marvelous
example of individual harmlessness to our world,
and though it
may not be a complete solution to all human problems,
it provided
a spiritual path for those seeking liberation
and an outstanding
model of self-discipline and reverence for all life.
1. Acharanga Sutra tr. Hermann Jacobi, 2:15:24.
2. Majjh. I, p. 92-93 quoted in Jain, K. C, Lord Mahavira
and His Times, p. 56-57.
3. Sutrakritanga tr. Hermann Jacobi, 1:10:3.
4. Uttaradhyayana tr. Hermann Jacobi, 1:15-16.
5. Ibid., 25:30-33.
6. Sayyanmbhava, Arya, Dasa Vaikalika Sutra, 5B:12.
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