The individual ascetic formed an integral part of the Sangha, which
was given by the Master a constitution and a code of laws. During his own
lifetime Mahavira attracted a large number of disciples, both men and
women. He collected an excellent community of fourteen thousand monks,
thirty six thousand nuns, one hundred and fifty nine thousand laymen and
three hundred and fifty-eight thousand lay women. At the head of these
were eleven Gaadharas or chief disciples. This was an important
item in the organization of the Sangha. Mahavira had seen in the
case of Gosala what special temptations and dangers beset ascetics in
their wandering life. He had made the life of his own ascetics fairly
full. Unlike the Buddhist Sramanas, who had a lot of free time and
were often guilty of indolence or indulged in dissension�s, disputes and
strifes, Mahavira�s Nirgrantha ascetics had plenty of work to do by way of
the practice of austerities, penance�s and fasts, besides meditation and
the daily routine of duties, to keep them engaged. Anyhow, he insisted on
his was the case with the Buddhist sramanas. But he also resolved
to combat the degenerating tendencies inherent in all monastic orders by a
strong organization and detailed set of regulations, and above all, as we
have mentioned above, by organically connecting it with the lay element in
society. This gave to the Jaina Sangha �a roof in India which the
Buddhists never obtained, and that roof firmly planted amongst the laity
enabled Jainism to withstand the storm that drove Buddhism out of India.�
The Sangha as well as the controlling Ganadharas and their
succeeding Acarya were not law-makers in any sense of the term. The
fundamental truths and the law were recognized to have been formally and
finally enunciated by Lord Mahavira. The Sangha had only to apply
and expound his regulations, and that was provided to be done by the
general assembly of all the monks resident in a particular locality under
the ultimate supervision of the Ganadhara or Acarya. The procedure was
likely to raise an insuperable problem, such as faced. Buddhism itself
when its band of disciples grew into a large spiritual force preaching and
begging throughout all India and even beyond it; the problem was to
effectively administer the spiritual regency in church-government in which
the center of gravity lay within the circumference, within the small corps
of brethren dwelling in the same circuit. The Jaina Sangha also
rapidly grew, both in numbers and in the area of its activity. From Bihar
its influence spread to Kalinga and from there presumably to South
India on one side and to the Mathura, Gujrat and the Punjab on the other.
Yet the spiritual regency of the Jainas has continued to be administered
right up to this day with an honesty, a rigour, and a desire not to lose
grip of the fundamental truths enunciated by the Master, which is wholly
antique in the annals of any religion with such long history. The anxiety
to stick to the original doctrine as closely has enabled Jainism to
weather the storms that in India wrecked so many of the other faiths. �The
inflexible conservatism of the Jaina community has probably been the chief
cause of its survival during period of severe affliction; for there can be
little doubt that the most important doctrines of the Jaina religion have
remained practically unaltered since the first great separation in the
time of Bhadrabahu, about 300 B.C. And although a number of less vital
rules concerning the life and practices of the monks and laymen, which we
find recorded in the holy scriptures, may have fallen into oblivion or
disuse, there is no reason to doubt that the religious life or the Jaina
community is now substantially the same as it was two thousand years ago.
It must be confessed from this that an absolute refusal to admit changes
has been the strongest safeguard of the Jainas.�
ENUNCIATION
OF THE TRUTH
Mahavira's Teachings:
The teachings of Mahavira have come down to us as a living tradition which
grew up and took a complete literary form through ten centuries from his
demise. The original doctrine was contained in the Purvas of which
there were fourteen, which Mahavira himself taught to his disciples. The
fourteen Purvas were presumably preceded by the existence of ten
Purvas, which had embodied the religious traditions of Parsva and
which formed, as we are led to believe by a legend mentioned in the
Bhagavati, a common basis of the Jaina and Ajivika canons. The
knowledge of the Purvas was gradually lost till it became totally
extinct. Only one of the Mahavira�s disciples, Arya Sudharma, handed them
down, and they were preserved during six generations more. In the second
century after Mahavira�s death there was a horrible famine in the land of
Magadha, which lasted for twelve years. Bhadrabahu was then the head of
the Jaina Sangha. There is a legend which connects this Bhadrabahu
with the Emperor Chandra Gupta Maurya and says that owning to the famine
Bhadrabahu emigrated with a host of his disciples including Chandragupta
himself to Karnataka in South India. This is clearly unwarranted by the
chronology of the event. When the famine took place, Bhadrabahu took
recourse to the neighboring Nepal hills and there started his Sadhana.
During the absence of Bhadrabahu it became evident that the knowledge of
the sacred texts was threatening to lapse into oblivion; and so a Council
was called at Pataliputra to compile a recession of the canon. The Jaina
belief is that the Tirthankara himself taught the Purvas to his
disciples, the Ganadharas, and the Ganadharas then composed
the Angas . The Council performed its task successfully, although
there was great difficulty in the compilation of the twelfth Angas,
the Drstivada, which is believed to have incorporated the fourteen
Purvas at the time when they ceased to exist independently of the
Angas literature. The difficulty was that the head of the community
in the Magadha did not have a complete knowledge of the Purvas and
so was not able to proceed with the business without the guidance
from a distance of Bhadrabahu himself.
It may be mentioned that the famous Hathigumpha inscription of Kharavela
furnishes a confirmation of the Jaina tradition regarding the Council of
Patalipurta and the compilation of a recession of Angas �in sixty-four
section.� �It is not by accident that the knowledge of the Purvas� says
Jacobi, �is said to have commenced to fade away at the same time when the
Angas were collected by the Sangha of Pataliputra.� The loss
of Purvas and later on of Drstivada was due largely to the
rise of other books on their basis. The very name Purva (which
means the former, the earlier) testifies to the fact that they were
superseded by a new canon. It may be inferred that the Purvas were, like
the Upanishads, a heterogeneous type of literature presenting a
wide diversity of sometimes mutually conflicting views, and therefore
extremely difficult to master, is of the opinion that they were devoted to
the description of controversies held between Mahavira and rival teachers.
It is true that the Drstivada, which is said to have included the
fourteen Purvas, dealt chiefly with the drstis or
philosophical opinions of the Jainas and other sects. The title which is
added to the name of each Purva, would seem to support this view.
When the opponents of Mahavira died and the sects headed by them became
extinct, the controversies related in the Purvas evidently lost their
interest and ceased to be of any practical significance. That reason may
have been partly responsible for their neglect.
The Angas came in the course of time to be known and acknowledged
as the only authoritative sacred books of Jainism. They were expressly
referred to in the Sutrakrtanga as the �Canon of the Jinas, which
has been taught, produced and declared by the Sramana, the
Nirgrantha.� The Digambara, however, refuse to recognize the
authenticity of the Angas. After the famine and the Council of
Pataliputra which had compiled the recession of the Angas, the
adherents of Bhadrabahu returned to Magadha but refused to consider the
compilation satisfactory and so declared that the Purvas and the Angas had
been irrecoverably lost. This became the basis of the belief of the
Digambara who hold that what exists as the Siddhanta is not in
its original form at all. Such contention does not appear to be well
grounded on the facts of history, although it is undoubtedly true that the
works of Siddhanta are the product of a process of compilation
which extended over a long period of at least one thousand years. After
compilation by the Council of Pataliputra the Canon fell into a state of
great disorder again and was on the verge of being lost, when it was
ultimately reduced to writing at the Council of Valabhi under the
presidency of Devardhi Ganin in the 5th century A.D. During the period
between the two councils, that is to say between the Council of
Pataliputra in the 4th century B.C. and the Council of Valabhi in the 5th
Century A.D., written copies of the Siddhanta were not easily
extant. Some privately owned copies must have existed, but it is certain
that the teachers made no use of written books when teaching the
Siddhanta to novices, as they undoubtedly began to do afterwards. What
the Council of Valabhi presumably did was to issue a large edition of the
Siddhanta so as to provide every teacher with copies of the sacred
books. This edition of course was merely a redaction of the sacred books,
which existed already. But in the course of ages, passages must have crept
into the text at any time and additions must have been made to the several
books, as is clear from the variety of language forms in which different
parts of the canon are written. Arguing from the language of the
composition, Jacobi is of the opinion that �the first book of the
Acaranga and that of the Sutrakrtanga sutra may be
reckoned among the most ancient parts of the Siddhanta.� The
earliest portions of the Canon do undoubtedly belong to the period of the
first disciples of Mahavira himself, while the latest portions would
presumably be nearer the time of Devardhi Ganin.
Notwithstanding occasional later accretions, however, the text of the
Angas and of some at least of the Upangas offer a substantially
correct description of the state of society, religion and thought in which
Mahavira performed his Sadhana and attained omniscience and of the
teachings of the Lord himself.
View of the World:
Like Buddha, Lord Mahavira presented a gloomy picture of the world. �The
(living) world is afflicted miserable, difficult to instruct and without
discrimination.�
Thus begins the second lecture of the first book of Acaranga
�Quality is the seat of the root, and the seat of the root is quality. He
who longs for the qualities, is overcome by great pains, and he is
careless. (For he thinks) I have to provide for a mother, for a father,
for a sister, for a wife, for sons, for daughters, for a daughter-in-law,
for my friends, for near and remote relations, for my acquaintances, for
different kinds of property, profit, meals, and clothes.
Longing for these objects, people are careless, suffer day and night, work
in the right and wrong time, desire wealth and treasures, commit injuries
and violent acts, direct the mind, again and again, upon those injurious
things (described in the first lecture). (Doing so) the life of some
mortals (which by destiny would have been long) is shortened. For when
with the deterioration of the perceptions of the ear, eye, organs of
smelling, tasting, touching, a man becomes aware of the decline of life,
they (i.e., those failing perceptions) after a time produce dotage. Or his
kinsmen with whom he lives together will, after a time, first grumble at
him and he will afterwards grumble at them. He is not fit for hilarity,
playing, pleasure, show. Therefore proceeding to pilgrimage, and thinking
that the present moment is favorable (for such intentions), he should be
steadfast and not, even for an hour, carelessly conduct himself. His
youth, his age and his life fade away.
�A man who carelessly conducts himself, who killing, cutting striking,
destroying, chasing away, frightening (living beings) resolves to do what
has not been done (by anyone)-him his relations with whom he lived
together, will first cherish, and he will afterwards cherish them. But
they cannot help thee or protect thee, nor canst thou help them or protect
them.�
In bold relief against this gloomy view of the Samsara, there is
presented the bright prospect of religious life as lived and taught by
Lord Mahavira. Mahavira developed a systematic exposition of Kriyavada
or Karmavada which he clearly distinguished from (1) the
Akriyavada of Gosala, who was essentially fatalist, (2) Ajnanavada
or agnosticism of Sanjaya, and (3) Vinayavada of the average
ascetic, who believes that the goal of religious life is realized by
conformation to the rules of discipline. He also distinguished it from the
other brands of Kviyavada, by defining his own creed as follows.
�The painful condition of the self is brought about by one�s own action,
it is not brought about by any other cause (fate, creator, chance or the
like)�. �Individually a man is born, individually he dies, individually he
falls (from this state of existence), individually he rises (to another).
His passions, consciousness, intellect, perceptions and impressions belong
to the individual exclusively. Here, indeed, the bonds of relationship are
not able to help or save one.� �All living beings owe their present
form of existence to their own Karman; timid, wicked, suffering
latent misery, they err about (in the circle of births), subject to birth,
old age and death.� Mahavira declared that there are as many souls as
living individuals, and that Karman consists of acts, intentional
or unintentional, that produce effects on the nature of the soul. The soul
is not passive in the sense that it remains untouched or unaffected by
what a person does for the sake of some interests. It is susceptible to
the influences of Karma, and it possesses the capacity to actively
annihilate Karma. By the practice of austerities and penance�s the jiva
can wear our, and ultimately destroy the effects of sinful karma committed
in former existence�s and by the practice of far-reaching self-restraint
it can free itself from the production of new karmas. The result of
this freedom from the bondage of Karma will be a non-guiding of the self
in the course of samsara in future, and the attainment of the
eternal and blissful condition of the soul in its perfection.
This condition of the soul is realizable in this very existence and
solely by human efforts, if rightly directed. The life of the Master stood
for all his disciples as a living example of such realization. The
development and manifestation of supreme personality, such as was attained
by Lord Mahavira himself, was the visible fruition of religious effort and
self-discipline; and this self-discipline was set out and preached by him
for the adoption of all persons, male or female, irrespective of any class
or caste distinctions.
