highest portion, i.e. the Brāhmans who came from the god’s mouth. So the reformers proceeded to deny the existence of a creator, feeling that, if that creator had existed, not only would he be responsible for the superiority of the Brāhmans but also for all the sorrows that darkened existence.
From the birth-story of their great founder one school of reformers—the Jaina—proved that it was a greater honour to be born of a Kṣatriya than of a Brāhman mother. Indeed all through the Jaina sacred books one comes across traces of this antagonism to Brāhmans and to Brāhmanic practices such as bathing,[1] divination,[2] &c., and one whole chapter, ‘The True Sacrifice’,[3] is directly written against them.
The Brāhmanic ascetic had to pass through four stages, but once the door of asceticism was forced open by rebels like the Jaina, it was opened as widely as possible, and the postulant was allowed to leap the intervening stages and become a wandering mendicant at once, if he so willed.
Having declared against birth exclusiveness, the Jaina were bound to find some other hall-mark of worth, and for this purpose they laid stress on karma. A man’s karma[4]—his actions—not his caste, they declared, was of supreme importance, but from this position they have since backslidden, as they themselves lament, and it rests with the Jaina of to-day to free themselves from the shackles of caste which they have allowed to rebind them, and once more to restate this fundamental tenet of their creed.
It must always be remembered that Jainism, though a rebellious daughter, is none the less a daughter of Brāhmanism, many of whose leading beliefs are still held by the
- ↑ Sūtrakritāṅga, S.B.E., xlv, p. 294.
- ↑ Ibid., p.366.
- ↑ Uttarādhyayana, S.B.E., xlv, p. 136 ff.
- ↑ 'By one's actions one becomes a Brāhmaṇa or a Kshattriya or a Vaiśya or a Śūdra... him who is exempt from all Karman we call a Brāhmaṇa.' Uttarādhyayana, S.B.E., xlv, p. 140. See also Āċārāṅga Sūtra, S.B.E., xxii, p. 45.
