Emergence of Jainism out of Hinduism

Jainism

      King of Magadha was blessed with his second son in 497 BC who was named Vardhmana Jnatrputra and ultimately got known by the name of 'Mahavira' with literal meaning as 'Great Warrior'. Although he was Kshatriya and a prince and a very great physique with all the qualities that can be ascribed with a great warrior but the fight he fought and won was not the usual fight with an enemy. He fought with his own passions and desires to overcome the penances required to achieve higher state of spiritual knowledge so as to achieve his liberation. All the princely luxuries and comforts were not good enough for him to continue his normal life even after living that life for thirty long years and at that time he decided to abandon everything and opt for the life of a renouncer. He had also decided to fight his own battle and obtain enlightenment with his own efforts and not through a learned teacher as was the tradition in those times.

Mahavir

      For long period of twelve and half years he wandered from one place to another in entire gangetic planes as a bhikshu practising hardest possible austerities. He deprived himself of food and shelter and even clothes so as to expedite the process of getting the enlightenment in a fast forward manner. He wanted to release his true self from the constraint of the body to achieve inner control. Finally at the age of forty-two, he achieved his liberation and acquired unique knowledge which gave him capacity to simultaneously perceive reality of all the levels and every dimension of time and space.

      He called this state as Kerala which is an experience which can only be experienced and not described. In this state there is a harmony with everything around and no room for any differentiation. Later he shared it with his followers saying that there is nothing to compare it with. It is beyond words, sound, form, soul, heaven or anything like that. But he had shown confidence that anyone else following the regime recommended by him, will be able to attain the said state and become a Jain. This is how his followers were called as Jains.

      Jainism believe that Mahavira was in fact the twenty fourth and last of Jain also called Tirthankaras. The first of the series of Jains was Rishabhdev who helped in emerging first picture of Jains by opposing the illogical rituals of primitive Aryans. The time line of this dates back to early Vedic period. Rishabhdev pursued purity of worship and liberation through personal restraints and conduct. In addition, there is a long list of such great souls each of whom had conquered their liberation pursuing the path of disciplined cultivation of knowledge and control over bodily passions of all kinds. Mahavira is said to be the last in series and is revered as founder of this thought called Jainism.

Teachings of Mahavira

      The summary of sustained teachings of Mahavira to his followers over the long years of his preaching can be briefly described here:

• Anger destroys love, pride puts an end to modesty; and deceit takes away friends, while greed destroys everything.

• He who wants happiness, must fight with all the enemies within himself. There is no use fighting external things. Who conquers himself is mightier than the person conquering on the battleground.

• Every soul is the architect on one's own life. Each person is the cause of his misery and happiness.

• Layman commits sins for the sake of his dears without realizing that when the time comes to repay for such conducts, he alone will be responsible and suffer painful punishments.

• Every person has to defend himself from seven sins, namely; drinking, cheating, eating meat, stealing, and relation with prostitutes, hunting animals and mis-advance with other's wife.

• Every person must always remain conscious for non-violence, self-restraints and penance. Self-purification is the purpose of penance that in turn, is the most effective way for destroying unwanted human instincts.

      The single most important doctrine of Mahavira is certainly non-violence against every living being which is the basis of Jainism. But his concept of living being was not limited only to human and animals or such being but extended right up to water, plants, fire, air and even stones. As per Mahavira, living being included everything but in different forms of the eternal matter that is constantly changing. It has come to its current state based on its past karmas. Also, that all beings share the same nature and must be shown equitable respect and courtesy. The equality of the tiniest and the largest is unique characteristic of Jainism with no parallel.

      It is said that you are more likely to develop hatred for something that you have been using for long rather than a person who is not a user of that thing. Similar thing happened with many Kshatriyas of Mahavira time who understood the importance of following non-violence as taught by Mahavira. They were the first to adopt the faith and many of them who were still in military duties and could not give up the same, agreed to do so as soon as possible with them in future. Following the ascetic way of life taught by Mahavira, new followers started getting respect from warriors who were already fighting their internal conflict similar to Arjuna in Mahabharata.

      It rather became a craze to get glory for self and family to achieve success by turning to be an ascetic renouncer because it was no cakewalk and required firm determination and astute ruthlessness which were, as it is, the hallmark of a true Kshatriya. Slowly-slowly the following increased and the community started getting formed in different parts of the Gangetic planes and west of India. A community so formed was called 'Gana'. His doctrine started finding followers and many of them were people in high places including kings and chief of armies. He wandered from place to place for 35 long years to popularize his doctrines and finally left his physical body in 425 BC at the age of seventy two years.

      His religion is now called Jainism. As on date it qualifies to be called one of the earliest living religions in entire human history. It is high on asceticism and put a great deal of emphasis on ethical conducts, personal purity for liberation of individual soul.

      Following non-violence of that nature was always going to remain a fundamental principle of Jainism. They were also to believe in non-stealing, truth in speech and maintaining perfect celibacy, the other three components of Yam as prescribed by Yoga philosophy of Hinduism. But non-violence was to be the most critical religious duty for all early Jinas and all other practices were supposed to have no impact if there was a violation of non-violence. Not only that, the scope of non-violence was also now enlarged like never before. A Jain was supposed to acquire perfect empathy with every living creature. He must develop the knowledge that every living being including the stones, as discussed before, are capable of feeling pain as a human and do not wish to suffer pain exactly like we do. This deep awareness at a profound level was to bring that empathy which Mahavira was talking about. A quote from one of the important Jain scripture will bring this point home:

      "All breathing, existing, living, sentient creatures, should not be slain, nor treated with violence, nor abused, nor tormented, nor driven away. This is the pure, unchangeable eternal law, which the enlightened ones who know have proclaimed"

      So, the violence included saying bad words (abuse) or simply by physical and mental suffering (tormented) or by lack of empathy (driving away); means that non-violence was to be practised in smallest details of all their life. This is the reason that Mahavira suggested the life of renouncer as he knew well that living a normal material life creates enormous opportunities for committing acts of violence on a daily basis. Speaking also is a source of violence, so he advocated as less speaking as possible; every time to use soft tone and words; and if truth was to harm any creature, they were advised to keep quiet. Similarly, the scope for stealing was not only to resist owning anything more than normal requirements but to refrain from owning any material thing.

      People following these practices soon reported positive benefits in terms of change of their attitudes in seeing the world and their surroundings in new light of empathy and coexistence. Soon the practices got extending to other unspoken areas like not plucking a fruit from the tree but to wait until it falls on the ground of its own, to be careful while walking on grass to avoid crushing of any insect, not to walk in darkness lest is an act of violence in unknown state, to drink only filtered water, becoming careful and take every step with full awareness of the surroundings. This new found awareness was said to lead the follower to gain 'compassion' for all other living beings. For people of the time, this concept must have been totally revealing against the prevalent practice of animal sacrifices of Vedic rituals. Later thinkers of the faith also developed their own full-fledged philosophy and wrote many scriptures but, similar to Hinduism, most of their scriptures and thinkers also got lost during famines of those periods.

      In terms of philosophy, Jainism did not believe in God as creator. They believed that every form consist of atoms which is the smallest of matter. Matter can be perceived by senses. In addition, there is a lot of energies including but not limited to cohesion, magnetism, electricity. Jains believed that all the matters and energies interplay under set rules for their respective creation, preservation and destruction and operation of these laws don't require presence of any God. They believed in Jeevatma (same as Vedic Atman) but not in Permatma (same as Vedic Brahman). Jains considered Jeevatma, the soul, also as an aspect of matter. They believe in karma, similar to Hindus.

      Later the Jains got divided in two main sects namely Swetambers and Digambers. As the name suggests, Swetambers use white colour clothes and are suppose to follow lineage of Acharya Stulibhadra Suri who is credited with compilation of Jain Agamas which is their key scripture. On the other hand, Digambers go without clothes and they reject the authority of Jain Agama and all they carry is a broom made out of fallen feathers of Peacocks. They follow the way of Acharya Kundakunda.

      Jains have made immense contribution in all spheres of social life since ancient times in India. To begin with, they are major absorbers of the Shramana thoughts, an alternate thought process to Vedic since beginning, the other being the Buddhism. They made immense contributions in many scriptures on Indian soil. Perhaps even bigger contribution they made is to promote vernacular languages even when Vedic scriptures were getting composed mainly using Sanskrit. The languages in particular owing lot of contributions from Jain writers are Hindi, Gujarati, Kannada, Tamil and Telugu.

      They constructed many temples, caves temples, temple cities and many stupas. Some of the great examples are Marble Temple Mount Abu, Ranakpur-Mewar, Parshvnath Temple-Khajuraho, Temple cities at Girnar and Palitana in Gujarat, Sammed in Bihar, Sonagiri in Bundelkhand and Muktagiri in Vidharbha. Some of the great Caves temples of Jains are at Badami-Bijapur, Karnataka and Ellora in Maharashtra. Their sculptures are marvelous examples of beautiful ornamental details, minutely carved decorations at pillars, ceilings, doorways and panels.

      But after about 1000 years of its establishments and having achieved great heights, the difficulty of following such a tight walk tradition lost its shine. In due course, its followers left for softer options offered by Buddhism and Hinduism who promised a simple way for liberation. Today only about six million followers are reported for this great tradition.