The Heart of Jainism/Chapter 2

by Alice Margaret Sinclair Stevenson

CHAPTER II

HISTORICAL SUMMARY

Early Indian history as yet resembles those maps of our grandfathers in which

Geographers for lack of towns
Drew elephants on pathless downs.

The genius of the people of India does not lie in historical research: to them metaphysical thought is the chief end of man, and they are content to leave to Western scholars the task of filling in the large gaps of unexplored country in their history. It is the misfortune of Jainism that so much of its life-story falls within these unexplored tracts of time, and, though the Jaina have kept historical records of their own, it is very difficult to correlate these records with known facts in the world's history.

Modern research seems to have proved that this great monastic fraternity arose at the end of the sixth century B.C., and one of its great claims to interest lies in the fact that enshrined in its rules and precepts it has, like some slow moving glacier, brought down to this materialistic century the thoughts of a time when men, ignoring the present, were ready to stake their all on a future life. Originating amongst a people whose trade was war, it has laid greater emphasis on the duty of mercy and the evils of killing than any sect save the Friends; its founder was an aristocrat, but it has met with greatest acceptance amongst the middle classes; and though an unworldly faith, whose highest precept it is to discard all wealth as dross, it has nevertheless won its adherents from a class famed throughout India for their love of gain and their reluctance to part with money, and induced these close-fisted merchants to support out of their largesse a large body of religious mendicants. Indeed it would be impossible to imagine any creed or rule of conduct which, prima facie, would seem so little likely to appeal to a constituency of cautious, middle-class bankers and shopkeepers. Yet even to-day Jaina men and women are renouncing everything for the sake of an idea with a heroism that has all the romance of the early Rajput days, when kings and nobles vied with one another to enter the order; and to this wealth of devotion, this still surviving power of renunciation, the religion of the Cross must eventually make a victorious appeal.

It may make for clearness to state quite baldly the few facts which we do know about Jaina history, taking, as it were, a bird’s-eye glance over it from a European standpoint, before we look at it from the Jaina point of view.

Mahāvīra, the great hero of the Jaina, was born the second son of a Kṣatriya chieftain, in Magadha (the modern Bihār), then the most powerful state in India. According to Jaina tradition, he was born in 599 and died in 527 b.c.^[1] Many modern scholars think these dates are somewhat too early, and are inclined to place his death about the beginning of the fifth century, but absolute certainty is not yet attainable. When he was thirty years of age, he entered a previously established order, that of Pārśvanātha, but left it after twelve months and spent the following eleven years in preaching his Law of Renunciation, albeit with little acceptance. Then came the high tide of success, and during the last thirty years of his life men and women from the lands east of ‘the middle country’ crowded into his order. His adherents were drawn chiefly from the Kṣatriya aristocracy, with whom he was connected through his mother by ties of kinship. The great ascetic proceeded to organize all his followers into a regular community containing lay as well as monastic members of both sexes; and at his death it contained more than 14,000 monks.

Under Mahāvīra’s influence members of two differing opinions had joined the order, those who held with the great leader that the complete abandonment of possessions involved the giving up of all clothing, and also members of another and earlier order, that of Pārśvanātha, who felt that some covering was a necessity and stopped short of this extreme of Renunciation. For long after the founder’s death the sections cohered together, and the genius of Mahāvīra in adapting his order to the need of the times was shown in the numbers of harassed men and women who crowded into it, finding in the renunciation of all things—property, affections and emotions—the surest refuge from the trials and changes of this mortal life.

The Jaina sometimes speak of Mahāvīra’s order as a protest against caste exclusiveness as such, but some European scholars hold that it was rather a protest of Kṣatriya against Brāhman; and the present practices of the Jaina community would seem to uphold this view, for the modern Jaina is as fast bound as his Hindu brother in the iron fetters of caste.

But, whatever its origin may have been, the order after the death of Mahāvīra continued to flourish under the rule of the great ascetic’s disciple, Sudharma, and his successors, as we shall learn from our study of Jaina legends and history.

Unlike Buddhism, Jainism has never spread beyond the borders of India. A religion which, by its very nature, is one of intense individualism, feels little responsibility for another’s soul and spends its energy on saving itself, is not likely to spread rapidly or far; yet, as we shall see, Jainism did gradually extend over the whole of India.

In particular it is plain that it found its way into Mysore and the Tamil country at a very early date. We shall study later the literary and artistic results of the predominance of this religion in the south during the early centuries of the Christian era. The following tradition is given by Jaina authorities as the reason for this early transplanting of the faith to such a distance. There is no conclusive evidence of the truth of the narrative, and some modern scholars think it a pure invention; yet it links itself so closely and naturally to later facts, that it is safer to say that it is probably, though not certainly, historic.

Some two centuries after Mahāvīra’s death, according to this story, a terrible famine visited Magadha, which had been the scene of his labours. Year after year the monsoon, on which the fertility of the land depends, failed, until at length all the accumulated stores of grain were consumed, and it became apparent that the country had no longer any superfluity, out of which to provide for a large body of mendicants. Accordingly half the community, under the leadership of Bhadrabāhu, moved off towards the south and settled in Mysore; and as the famine lasted for twelve years, they were able to establish their faith in all that region. We are also told that the emigrants were accompanied to Mysore by Ċandragupta, the first Emperor of India, and founder of the Maurya Dynasty, whom the Jaina claim as a co-religionist. They add that he committed religious suicide by self-starvation at Śrāvaṇa Belgolā. If the tradition is trustworthy, the date of the migration must be placed c. 298 or 296 b.c., for Bindusāra succeeded Ċandragupta about that time.

This period is perhaps the most important in Jaina history; for not only did it lead to the establishment of Jainism in the south, but it is also the time of the fixing of the earliest canon of Jaina scripture.

Tradition says that all the monks did not migrate to the south; some, under the leadership of Sthūlabhadra, preferred to cling at any risk to the hallowed scenes of their Holy Land. It was perhaps easier for the minority to carry things through than it would have been for the whole unwieldy body; or it may have been that the death of many of their members through famine warned their leaders on how precarious a footing the memoriter knowledge of their sacred books stood. However this may be, Sthūlabhadra summoned a council of monks early in the third century b.c. at Pāṭaliputra, the modern Patna, a place historic in the annals of their order and at that time the capital of the Maurya Empire. This council fixed the canon of the Jaina sacred literature, consisting of the eleven Aṅga and the fourteen Pūrva. It seems likely that the books were not committed to writing at this time, but were still preserved in the memories of the monks. The action of the council would thus be limited to settling what treatises were authoritative. Unfortunately, as we shall see later, the sects do not quite agree as to what is meant by the eleven Aṅga and the fourteen Pūrva, so that the work of the famous council of Pāṭaliputra did not carry the weight which Sthūlabhadra hoped it would have done.

During this period not only was Jainism established in the south and the canon of the Scriptures fixed in the north, but also the famous clothes-versus-nudity question was raised, never again to be laid. We are told that, when at last the famine was over and the real head of the order, Bhadrābahu or his successor, could bring some of his travelled mendicants back from the south to the original home of their order, he found that the home-keeping minority had all adopted some form of clothing; and, though the actual schism did not take place until two more centuries had passed, the unity of the order was lost for ever, and any whole-hearted agreement on such a question as the canon of their scriptures was never again possible.

As the Jaina laity had been drawn away from Hinduism by their adhesion to Mahāvīra, they were left without any stated worship. Gradually, however, reverence for their master and for other teachers, historical and mythical, passed into adoration and took the form of a regular cult. Finally, images of these adored personages were set up for worship, and idolatry became one of the chief institutions of orthodox Jainism. The process was precisely parallel to what happened in Buddhism. It is not known when idols were introduced, but it was probably in the second or first century b.c.

The third and second centuries b.c. must have been a period of great activity amongst the Jaina. Under Aśoka the religion is said to have been introduced into Kashmir. Under Suhastin, the great ecclesiastical head of the order in the second century, Jainism received many marks of approbation from Samprati, grandson of Aśoka. Inscriptions show that it was already very powerful in Orissa in the second century and in Mathurā in the north-west in the first century b.c. The history is not known in detail, but it is clear that after the Christian era the faith spread over the whole of the west and rose to great prominence and power in Gujarāt. We have also evidence of its activity in most parts of Southern India during the first millenium of the Christian era.

The next important event in Jaina history is the great schism and the final division into Śvetāmbara (white-clothed) and Digambara (atmosphere-clad, i.e. nude) sects which took place in a.d. 79 or 82. The Jaina have many legends to account for the division taking place when it did; but, whatever the reason, the depth of the cleavage between the two parties is shown by the fact that nowadays every sect adds after its own particular designation the name of one of these two great parties to which it adheres. For instance, the members of hte modern non-idolatrous sect, the Sthānakavāsī, call themselves Sthānakavāsī Śvetāmbara, though it would seem to us that in having no idols they differ from the Śvetāmbara far more than the Śvetāmbara differ from the Digambara.

In the meantime the sacred literature of the Jaina was in a thoroughly unsatisfactory state, and was in real danger of being entirely lost. Owing to the conversion or patronage of western kings the centre of Jainism was gradually changing from Bihār to Gujarāt, and so when the great council of a.d. 454^[2] came together, it was summoned not in the historic land of Magadha but in the western country won for the Jaina faith by missionary effort. The place chosen was Vallabhi, near Bhāvnagar, and the president of the council was Devarddhi. So far the Śvetāmbara and Sthānakavāsī sects concur, though they do not agree as to the canon of the scriptures then determined. In Kāṭhiāwāḍ at the present time there are at least eleven sub-sects amongst the Sthānakavāsī Jaina and eighty-four amongst the Śvetāmbara, and these hold differing views as to the correct list of books rightly comprised in their canon. Curiously enough they do not seem much to study the sacred texts themselves, but usually content themselves with quoting lists of the names of their books. It will perhaps suffice for our purpose if we note one such list from amongst those that have been given to the writer.

A. The Eleven Aṅga.

1. Āċārāṅga Sūtra.
2. Suyagaḍāṅga (Sūtrakṛitāṅga) Sūtra.
3. Thāṇānga (Sthānāṅga) Sūtra.
4. Samavāyāṅga Sūtra.
5. Bhagavatījī or Vivihapannanti.
6. Jñātādharma Kathāṅga.
7. Upāsaka Daśāṅga.
8. Antagaḍa Daśāṅga (Antakṛitāṅga).
9. Anuttarovavāi Dasāṅga (Anuttaropapātika).
10. Praśna Vyākaraṇa.
11. Vipāka Sūtra.

B. Twelve Upāṅga.

1. Uvavāi (Aupapātika).
2. Rāyapaseṇi (Rājapraśnīya).
3. Jivābhigama.
   4. Pannavaṇā (Prajñāpanā).
   5. Jambūdīvapannati (Jambūdvīpaprajñapti).
   6. Ċandapannati (Ċandraprajñapti).
   7. Surapannati (Sūryaprajñapti).
   8. Nirāvalīā (Nirayāvalī) (according to other lists, Kappīā).
   9. Kappavaḍīśayyā (Kalpāvantasikā).
   10. Pupphiyā (Puṣpakā).
   11. Puppaċulīā (Puṣpaċūlikā).
   12. Vanhidaśā.

C. Six Ċhedagrantha (or Five Ċhedagrantha).

1. Vyavahāra Sūtra.
2. Bṛihatkalpa (Vṛihatkalpa).
3. Daśāśrutaskandha.
4. Niśītha.
5. Mahāniśītha.^[3]
6. Jitakalpa.^[4]

Four Mūḷagrantha (according to the Śvetāmbara canon).

1. Daśavaikālika.
2. Uttarādhyayana.
3. Āvaśyaka.
4. Oghaniryuti.

Four Mūḷagrantha (according to the Sthānakavāsī canon).

1. Daśavaikālika.
2. Uttarādhyayana.
3. Nandī Sūtra.
4. Anuyogadvāra.

This completes the Sthānakavāsī canon, but the Śvetāmbara also accept the following:—

Ten Payannā (or Prakirna).

1. Ċausaraṇa (Ċatuḥśaraṇa).
2. Santhārā (Sanstāraka) Payannā.
   3. Tandulaveyālīā (Tandulavaiċārika).
   4. Ċandāvijaya (Ċandravedhyaka).
   5. Gaṇīvijaya (Gaṇividyā).
   6. Devindathuo (Devendrastava).
   7. Vīrathuo (Vīrastava).
   8. Gaċċhāċāra
   9. Jyotikaraṇḍa (Jyotiṣkaraṇḍaka).
   10. Ayuḥpaċċakhāṇa (Āturapratyākhyāna).

In certain other lists the Śvetāmbara canon is made to contain eighty-four books by adding twenty more Payannā, twelve Niryukti, and nine miscellaneous works, including the Kalpa Sūtra, which is held in special honour among the Śvetāmbara. Both Śvetāmbara and Sthānakavāsī agree that there were originally twelve Aṅga, but that the twelfth or Dṛiṣṭivāda Aṅga, containing an account of the fourteen Pūrva, has been lost.

What is the relation of the new canon to the old? It is probable that the Aṅga of the later correspond to those of the original canon; but it is also probable that during the centuries they underwent many changes. Jaina tradition acknowledges that all the Pūrva were lost at quite an early date. The other books are doubtless of later origin; yet even they rest on early tradition and probably contain a good deal of early material.

The original canon was not written, but it is not unlikely that individual monks used writing to aid memory long before the second codification. It seems certain that in a.d. 454 the whole canon was reduced to writing, and that a large number of copies were made, so that no monastery of any consequence should be without one.

The Jaina are very proud of the fact that their scriptures were not written in Sanskrit but in ‘one of the most important, the best preserved, and the most copious of all the Prākṛit dialects’^[5] that of Ardha-Māgadhī; that is to say, not in the language of the learned but of the common people; and we who have our scriptures and our book of Common Prayer in our mother tongue can understand their pride.

The Śvetāmbara do not, as a rule, allow their scriptures to be read by laymen, or even by nuns, but restrict the study of them to monks. The laity seem to read chiefly a book composed of quotations from their scriptures. The Sthānakavāsī are not so strict, and allow most of their sacred books to be read by the laity, but not the Ċhedagrantha, which they say were intended for the professed alone. The most popular of the books amongst the Sthānakavāsī laity are the Upāsaka Daśāṅga, the Āċārāṅga Sūtra, and the Daśavaikālika. To judge by their preaching and lectures the Kalpa Sūtra would seem to be the scripture most studied by the Svetāmbara sādhus.

The Digambara canon differs so entirely from the Śvetāmbara that it does not seem probable that the sect was represented at the great council of a.d. 454.

They call their scriptures their Four Veda, and members of their community at Mount Ābu and at Pālitāṇā gave the writer a list of them in the following order:

1. Prathamānuyoga.
2. Karaṇānuyoga.
3. Ċaraṇānuyoga.
4. Dravyānuyoga.

Professor Jacobi adduces in proof of the antiquity of the Jaina scriptures, amongst other things, the fact that they contain no reference to Greek astrology which was introduced into India in the third or fourth century a.d.

As we have already seen, it seems probable that, though the canon of the scriptures had been fixed in 300 b.c. by the council of Pāṭaliputra, they had not all been committed to writing, but had generally been handed down by word of mouth from teacher to disciple; the result, however, of the council of Vallabhi was the enshrining of the sacred lore in manuscript books. To this day the manuscript scriptures are considered more sacred than those which have been printed—the writer has sometimes seen a little pile of rice placed before a bookcase to do honour to the manuscript scriptures it contained.

The zenith of Jaina prosperity lasted from the council of Vallabhi down to the thirteenth century. Strangely enough the years that witnessed the decline and fall of Buddhism saw the spread both in the west and south of its rival faith, and though Jainism almost vanished from Bihār, the land of its birth, yet in the west it became the court religion. The events of these happy centuries are enshrined, as we shall see, in the legends that are still current amongst the Jaina, and more abiding monuments to this epoch of prosperity remain in the books that were written and the temples erected in the sunshine of royal favour.

The princely names the Jaina best love to recall in this connexion are Maṇḍalika, a king of Surāṣṭra (Kāṭhiāwāḍ) about a.d. 1059, who repaired the temple of Neminātha on Mt. Girnār; Siddharāja Jayasiṁha, a king of Gujarāt (died a.d. 1125), the first patron of Hemaċandra, who often went on pilgrimage to Girnār, and his successor Kumārapāla (a.d. 1125-59) whom the Jaina claim to have been converted to their faith,^[6] and who is said to have established Jainism as the state religion.

But the decline of Jainism was close at hand. The Jaina attribute the first destruction of their temples to the hostility of the Brāhmans, especially under Ajayapāla, a.d. 1174-6, but the injuries he inflicted were as nothing to the devastation wrought by the Mohammedans. As the Irish execrate the name of Cromwell, so did the Jaina that of Alā-ud-dīn—'the Bloody’—who conquered Gujarāt a.d. 1297-8. He razed many of their temples to the ground, massacred their communities and destroyed their libraries. Many of the most beautiful Mohammedan mosques in India have woven into their fabric stones from Jaina shrines which the ruthless conquerors had destroyed.

In the south Jainism had flourished exceedingly after its introduction by Bhadrabāhu, and many of the languages and grammars were largely shaped by the labours of Jaina monks.

In a.d. 640, when the Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsang visited India, he met numbers of monks belonging to the Digambara (naked) sect in the south and admired their beautiful temples. But after his visit a great persecution arose. A Jaina king, Kūna,^[7] became converted to Śaivism in the middle of the seventh century and, if we may trust the sculptures at Trivatūr in Arcot, slew with the most horrible severity thousands of his former co-religionists who refused to follow his example. Even if the account of the persecution be exaggerated, there is no doubt that after this time the prosperity of Jainism in the south steadily declined.

To return to the north. The wonder is, not that any temples survived the Mohammedan persecutions, but that Jainism itself was not extinguished in a storm which simply swept Buddhism out of India. The character of Jainism, however, was such as to enable it to throw out tentacles to help it in its hour of need. It had never, like Buddhism, cut itself off from the faith that surrounded it, for it had always employed Brāhmans as its domestic chaplains, who presided at its birth rites and often acted as officiants at its death and marriage ceremonies and temple worship. Then, too, amongst its chief heroes it had found niches for some of the favourites of the Hindu pantheon, Rāma, Kṛiṣṇa and the like. Mahāvīra’s genius for organization also stood Jainism in good stead now, for he had made the laity an integral part of the community, whereas in Buddhism they had no part nor lot in the order. So, when storms of persecution swept over the land, Jainism simply took refuge in Hinduism, which opened its capacious bosom to receive it; and to the conquerors it seemed an indistinguishable part of that great system.

The receptivity, however, which Hinduism has always shown towards it is to-day one of the reasons that makes Jainism so difficult to study; for many Jaina, justified by the resemblance in their worship and thought, simply count themselves Hindus and actually so write themselves down in the census returns.

If one effect of the Mohammedan conquest, however, was to drive many of the Jaina into closer union with their fellow idol-worshippers in the face of iconoclasts, another effect was to drive others away from idolatry altogether. No oriental could hear a fellow oriental’s passionate outcry against idolatry without doubts as to the righteousness of the practice entering his mind.

Naturally enough it is in Ahmadābād, the city of Gujarāt that was most under Mohammedan influence, that we can first trace the stirring of these doubts. About a.d. 1452 the Loṅkā sect, the first of the non-idolatrous Jaina sects, arose and was followed by the Ḍhuṇḍhīā or Sthānakavāsī sect about a.d 1653, dates which coincide strikingly with the Lutheran and Puritan movements in Europe.

Jainism has never recovered its temporal power since the days of the Mohammedan conquest; it is no longer in any sense a court religion; nevertheless the influence that it wields in India to-day is enormous. Its great wealth and its position as the religion par excellence of money-lenders and bankers makes it, especially in native states, the power behind the throne; and if any one doubt its influence, he need only count up the number of edicts prohibiting the slaying of animals on Jaina sacred days that have recently been issued by the rulers of independent states. According to the last census the Jaina numbered some 1,248,182, but probably many more are included under Hindus. Their standard of literacy (495 males and 40 females per thousand) is higher than that of any other community save the Pārsīs, and they proudly boast that not in vain in their system are practical ethics wedded to philosophical speculation, for their criminal record is magnificently white.

1. Other traditions give 545 and 467.
2. Other traditions, however, put the date as late as a.d. 467 or even a.d. 513.
3. Sthānakavāsī Jaina do not recognize the Mahāniśītha or the Jitakalpa.
4. Some Śvetāmbra jaina do not accept the Jitakalpa but add another Mūḷagrantha.
5. Imperial Gazetteer of India, ii, p. 261.
6. At any rate he built thrity-two temples to atone for the sins of his teeth!
7. Vincent Smith, Early history of India, third edition, p. 455.