Civilisation in The Early Days of Magadhan Ascendency

Mahavira and Jainism

The parents of Mahavira were Siddhartha, a Jnatrika chief of Kundapura, and Trisala, a Kshatriya lady related to the ruling families of Vaisali and Magadha. The early life of Mahavira is veiled in obscurity. According to the tradition of the Svetambara (white-robed) Jainas, he married a princess named Yasoda. He lived for some time the life of a pious householder, but forsook the world at the age of thirty. He roamed as a naked ascetic in several countries of eastern India and practised severe penance for twelve years. For half the period he lived with a mendicant friar named Gosala who subsequently left him and became the leader of the Ajivika sect. In the thirteenth year of his penance, Mahavira repaired to the northern bank of the river Rijupalika outside Jrimbhikagrama, a little-known locality in eastern India, and attained the highest spiritual knowledge called Kevala-jnana. He was now a Kevalin (omniscient), a Jina (conqueror) and Mahavira (the great hero).  

He became the head of a sect called Nirgranthas (“free from fetters”), known in later times as Jainas or followers of the Jina (conqueror). For thirty years he wandered about as a religious teacher and died at Pava in South Bihar at the age of seventy-two. The event is said to have happened 215 years before the Mauryas and 470 years before Vikrama. This is usually taken to refer to 528 B.C. But 468 B.C. is preferred by some modern scholars who rely on a tradition recorded by the Jaina monk Hemachandra that the interval between Mahavira’s death and the accession of Chandragupta Maurya was 155, and not 215, years. The latter date does not accord with the explicit statement in some of the earliest Buddhist texts that Mahavira predeceased the Buddha. The earlier date is also beset with difficulties, and no definite conclusion is possible.

The Jainas believe that Mahavira was not the founder of a new religious system, but the last of a long succession of twenty-four Tirthankaras or “ford-makers across the stream of existence,”. The twenty-third teacher, Parsva, the immediate predecessor of Mahavira, seems to have been a historical figure. He was a prince of Benares, and he enjoined on his disciples the four great vows of non-injury, truthfulness, abstention from stealing and non-attachment. To these Mahavira added the vow of Brahmacharya or continence. He also emphasised the need of discarding all external things, including garments, if complete freedom from bonds is to be attained. By following the three-fold path of Right Belief, Right Knowledge, and Right Conduct, souls will be released from trans-migration and reach the pure and blissful abode (Siddha Sila) which is the goal of Jaina aspiration. There is no place in Jainism for a supreme creative spirit. The doctrine of non-injury is given a wide extension by attributing souls not only to birds and beasts but also to plants, metals, water, etc.

According to the tradition of the Svetambara Jainas, the original doctrine taught by Mahavira was contained in fourteen old texts styled Purvas. Towards the close of the fourth century B.C., when a famine in South Bihar led to the exodus of an important section of the Jainas, headed by Bhadrabahu, to the Mysore country, those that remained behind in Pataliputra convoked a council with a view to reviving the knowledge of the sacred texts which was passing into oblivion. The result was the compilation of the twelve Angas which are regarded as the most important part of the Jaina canon. Another council was held at Valabhi in Gujarat in the fifth or sixth century A.D. which made a final collection of the scriptures and reduced them to writing. The complete canon included not only the Angas, but sundry other treatises styled Upanga, Mula Sutra, etc.

The followers of Bhadrabahu, on their return to the north, refused to acknowledge the canon as drawn up by their co-religionists at home, who came to be known as Svetambaras (clad in white) as they wore white garments notwithstanding the injunctions of Mahavira. Those who continued to follow scrupulously the directions of the famous Jnatrika teacher regarding nudity, !came to be called Digambaras (sky-clad or naked). The division of the Jaina Church into these two sects is at least as old as the first century A.D. But it may be much older, and some scholars find in the followers of Parsva, the Tirthankara who immediately preceded Mahivira, the precursors of the Svetambaras of later ages.
Gautama Buddha

Among the notable contemporaries of Mahavira was a wandering teacher who belonged to the Sakya clan of Kapilavastu in the Nepal Tarai to the north of the Basti district of the Uttar Pradesh. His name was Siddhartha and he belonged to the Gautama gotra or family. He was born in the village of Lumbinigrama near Kapilavastu about the year 566 B.C. according to the system of chronology adopted in these pages. The site of his nativity is marked by the celebrated Rummindei Pillar of Asoka Maurya. He was the son of Suddhodana, a Raja, or noble of Kapilavastu, and of Maya, a princess of Devadaha, aSculpture of monks with Buddha small town in the Sakya territory. Maya, died in child-birth and the little Siddhartha was brought up by his aunt and stepmother Prajapati Gautami. At the age of sixteen the prince was married to a lady known to tradition as Bhadda Kachchana, Yasodhara, Subhadraka, Bimba or Gopa, whom some authorities represent as a niece of Maya. After his marriage, Siddhartha grew up amidst the luxurious surroundings of the palace till at last the vision of old age, disease and death made him realise the hollowness of worldly pleasure. He felt powerfully attracted by the calm serenity of the passion-less recluse, and the birth of a son, Rahula, made him decide to leave his home and family at once. The Great Renunciation took place when Siddhartha reached the age of twenty-nine. For six years he lived as a homeless ascetic, seeking instruction under two religious teachers and visiting many places including Rajagriha, in the Patna district, and Uruvilva, near Gaya,. At Uruvilva he practised the most rigid austerities only to find that they were of no help to him in reaching his goal. He then took a bath in the stream of the river Nairanjana, modern Lilajan, and sat under a pipal tree at modern Bodh-Gaya. Here at last he attained unto supreme knowledge and insight and became known as the Buddha or the Enlightened One, Tathagata (“he who had attained the truth”) and Sakya-muni or the sage of the Sakya clan. 

The Enlightened One now proceeded to the Deer Park near Sarnath in the neighbourhood of Benares and began to preach his doctrine. For forty-five years he roamed about as a wandering teacher and proclaimed his gospel to the princes and people of Oudh, Bihar and some adjoining territories. He laid the foundation of the Buddhist Order of monks (Sangha) and received important gifts of groves and monasteries from friendly rulers and citizens. Among his converts was his cousin Devadatta who subsequently broke away from him and founded a rival sect that survived in parts of Oudh and Western Bengal till the Gupta period. The Buddha is said to have died at the age of eighty at Kusinagara, modern Kasia in the Gorakhpur district of the Uttar Pradesh. The date of his Great Decease (Parinirvana) is a subject of keen controversy. If the Ceylonese tradition that 218 years intervened between the Parinirvana and the consecration of Priyadarsana (Asoka) has any value, the date cannot be far removed from 486 B.C., the starting-point of the famous “dotted record” at Canton.

Buddha taught his followers the four “Noble Truths” (Arya Satya) concerning suffering, the cause of suffering, the destruction of suffering and the way that leads to the destruction of sorrow. That way did not lie either in habitual practice of sensuality or in habitual practice of self-torture. There was a “Middle Path” called the “Noble Eightfold-path”, that is to say, Right Views, Right Aspirations, Right Speech, Right Conduct, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Contemplation. This was the path that “opened the eyes, bestowed understanding, led to peace of mind, to the higher wisdom, to full enlightenment, to Nirvana”. Nirvana literally means “the blowing out” or extinction of craving of the desire for existence in all its forms, and the consequent cessation of suffering. But it is not mere extinction. It is a tranquil state to be realised by one who “from all craving want was free.”

In his last things. Work out yoexhortation to his disciples just on the eve of his death, the Buddha said, “Decay is inherent in all component of salvation with diligence (apramada).”

The striving for salvation requires in the first place the observance of the Silas or Moralities, that is to say, abandonment of killing, stealing, incontinence, falsehood, slander, luxury, hankering for wealth, performance of blood sacrifices, and sundry other practices.

The next requisite is Samadhi or concentration, and finally Prajna or insight. These ultimately lead to Sambodhi (enlightenment) and Nirvana.

The Buddhists shared with their fellow-countrymen of other persuasions, including the Brahmanical Hindus and the Jainas, the belief in Samsara (transmigration) and Karma (retribution for the deed done). Like the Jainas, they rejected the authority of the Vedas, condemned blood sacrifices, denied or doubted the existence of a supreme creative spirit, and inculcated reverence for saints who, from their point of view, attained to supreme knowledge. But unlike the followers of the Jnatrika teacher they did not acknowledge a permanent entity or an immortal soul, were not convinced of the efficacy of discarding garments, and considered rigid penance to be as useless as indulgence in sensual pleasure. The disciples of Mahavira on the other hand, endowed even plants, metals, water and air with souls and gave a wide extension to the doctrine of non-violence. They considered all external things, including garments, to be an impediment to spiritual progress, and believed that the ideal man should lead a life of rigid austerities, putting up with all sorts of torments and tribulations, never seeking any relief. The saints and prophets of Jainism were of a different type from the saints and prophets of Buddhism, and the Jainas did not altogether dispense with the worship of the old deities or the services of the Brahmanas.