Advent of Bhagavan Mahavira

By Ganadhipati Tulsi

The Tradition of Sramanas : All substances undergo transformation. The transformation are temporal but the substance are eternal. Looked at from the point of substance, the temporal flame of the candle is eternal. Looked at from the point of view of transformation, the eternal space is temporal. The world can be explained in terms of both change and permanence. Names and forms continuously change. People often ask : is the Jaina religion eternal ? If they were to ask whether dharma (religion) is eternal, the reply would be : yes it is. Dharma is the nature of things. It had no beginning and it will have no end. But the terms dharma and Jaina are not eternal. They came into vouge some time and might disappear in the course of time. No name can claim eternity. The word Jaina is not very old, but the tradition it stands for is indeed ancient. The Jaina dharma is the successor of the older sramana dharma. The Sramana tradition in Indian religion and philosophy has a hoary past. It was devoted and enriched by the arhats. Rsabha was the first arhat. As a king, he was the pioneer in the fields of agriculture, trade and commerce, and drafts. He developed these for the good of his people. He was the first to set up a social organization and an administrative machinery for it. He become an ascetic in pursuit of spiritual attainments and was canonized as a Arhat. Then he began to preach his religion. This event belongs to that period of pre-history when human civilization was in its infancy. Primitive people were being settled in villages in organized communities. Arhat Rsabha lit into every heart the fire which burnt in himself. The tradition of the arhats was born and it flowed unfettered till the time of Parsva who was a historical figure. The earlier earlier arhats are considered to be prehistoric.

Bhagavan Parsva : Bhagavan Parsva vitalized collective spiritual discipline. He opposed the practice of self-mortification based on ignorance and involving ahimsa (violence). He give it a spiritual orientation. Because of his determined opposition to sheer self-mortification, he had to face serious difficulties. But one who treads the path of friendliness and non-violence must oppose ahimsa and face the consequences, however painful they may be.

Bhagavan Parsva succeeded in his mission. The sramanas started wielding considerable influence in his time. It was, in fact, the influence of ahimsa. Bhagavan Parsava, therefore, become very popular and the followers of both-the Sramana and Brahmana traditions came to knowledge his greatness. Bhagavan Mahavira used the epithet purusadaniya for parsva which means 'worshipped by the people' or 'leader or the people'. The parents of Bhagwan Mahavira and his maternal uncle Cetaka, the head of the Licchavi Republic of Vaisali, were the followers of Bhagavan Parsva Who had strengthened and popularised the philosophy of spiritualism and self-realization as against materialism nature workship. This was a great achievement. The achievement of Bhagavan Parsva were inherited by Bhagavan Mahavira and Bhagavan Buddha and several other tirthankaras of the sramana system.

Social and Religious Conditions : Change is the immutable and universal law of nature. The rise and fall of men and the strength and weakness of movement are determined by this law. The movement of ahimsa and self-discipline which Bhagavan Parsva had launched began to lose its momentum within a couple of centuries of his nirvana. When Bhagavan Mahavira started his career, he found social values in the melting pot. Society was governed by brute force. Kings had become deified. Their subjects were forced to knowledge their sovereignty and to bear the yoke of tyranny as a matter of duty. The royal priests had whipped up such a psychosis of respect for the kings that their edicts came to be treated as divine decrees. To oppose them was to invite vengeance.

Wealth had begun to be worshipped. Society become divided into the rich and the poor. Human being were purchased and converted into slaves and treated as cattle or beasts of burden. The masters were entitled to punish them in any way they liked. Royal power and the power of wealth forced a division between men and men. The principle of human equality and unity became eclipsed. Casterism began to encourage social discrimination. The sudras were considered low and the untouchables lower still. Human intelligence came to be discredited and a man's worth was measured according to the status of his caste, Power and wealth. This resulted in a sense of superiority in the wealthy and that of inferiority in the poor. The popular faith in the distorted doctrine of karma contributed its share in developing such a situation. The wretched were supposed to have been born with the evil effect of their misdeeds in the past life which they must pay for with suffering in this life. They were expected to bear their present miseries with patience.

There was very little education and it was limited to the rich few. The common man lived by physical labour only. He was not at all awakened to raise voice against injustice.

There were two main traditions of religion-the Sramana and the vedic. The sramanas were organized into several samghas or monastic orders and the most highly enlightened leaders of these organizations were known as tirthankaras. There were several sects of the Vedic tradition also. The Rsis of the Vedic Traditions were theists, While the sages of the Upanisads professed the philosophy of the Brahman. Some of the sramana Acharyas were also theists. But most of them professed the philosophy of the nirvana and Atman (liberation and the self).

All the religious teachers were seriously engaged in resolving the profound mysteries of the universe. While some of them tried to comprehend Truth through meditation and ascetic practices, others attempted to do so through worship and spells. Those who worshipped sakti (cosmic power) and practised charms looked all the violence committed for the propitiation of the gods as proper and legitimate and performed animal sacrifice. Rituals (yajnas) were performed to secure heaven. It was believe that the ritual of bathing in water lead to self-purification. On the basis of the doctrine that the mortification of the body lead to liberation, many an ascetic performed penances by heating their bodies with the aggregate of five fires burnt around their bodies under the scorching heat of the sun. Some of the ascetics went to the extent of lying down on the sharp edges of iron nails.

It was predominantly religious age. The kings and their subjects believed in the life of the spirit. The status of religion was higher then that of the state. But there were also those who repudiated religion, through they were in a negligible minority. However, they did not command respect in the society. That is why religion and those who practised it came to acquire considerable prestige. The number of ascetics in all the sect was fairly large. thousands of monks were seen wandering in groups from village to village. They belonged to diverse sect and sub-sects, and the met and engaged each other in metaphysical discussions to understand each other's view-point.

The votaries of sakti did not look upon the subduing of passions as indispensable. It was the spiritual alone who considered it sine qua non. They, therefore, maintained that one passions of attachment and aversion.

Attachment to material comforts and sensuous pleasures is one of the instincts of man. It leads men to clash of interests. But when conflicts reach their climax, people are as by necessity driven to seek for spiritual solutions. This situation is a prelude to the advent of a great spiritual leader who would lift society to a higher stage of spiritual development. When the psychological background for a change has been prepared, society takes a leap.

The Vajji Republic : Twenty five hundred years ago, the vast Indian sub-continent was divided into a number of tiny kingdoms. Although geographical expanse of the country at that time was larger then what it is today, there was nobody competent enough to bind these states into a single political unit. There was no Cakravarti (emperor) nor a central political leadership as we understand it today.

There were two systems of government in the Eastern region. The states of Anga, Magadha, Vadeha etc. on the other hand were monarchies. These of kasi, kausala, Videha etc. on the other hand were republics. Two of these republic were quit well-known, the Republics of the Vajji or Licchavis and that of the Mallas. Republics were later developments of monarchies and the precursors of democracies. The Licchavis founded their Republic with a view to consolidation their political power. The credit for its foundation goes to Cetaka, who was a wise and valorous king of Videha. He was also the President of the whole Republic. This Republic was the union of eighteen political units, nine of which belonged to the Licchavis and the remaining nine to the Mallas. The king of each Union comprising the Vajji Repunblic were called Gananayakas. The council of the Gananayakas was called Gana Sabha or Republican Council. It made the constitution and the laws. The individual units were governed in accordance with the constitution of the gana or the Union. The Republic was rich and well-developed in the fields of politics, Economics, Society and Religion. The monarchists were highly jealous of this powerful Republic. They were bent upon destroying it. But they were helpless in the face of the powerful vajjian army.

Videha with its capital at Vaisali was the biggest unit. Vaisali was divided into three Zones. The first zone consisted of seven thousand residential houses with golden domes. The middle of the town consisted of fourteen thousand houses with silver domes. The third zone consisted of twenty-one thousand houses with copper domes. These zones were inhabited by the high, middle and lower classes respectively. Vaisali was not only the capital of entire Vajji Republic. It was enclosed within four city walls, each at a distance of two miles from the others. It had several ramparts and entrance-gates. The Republic was a confederation of six clans viz. the Ugras, the Bhojas, the Rajanyas, the Iksvakus (the Licchavis), the Jnatas and the Kauravas.

The Malla Republic was divided into two units, one in the north-west with its capital at Kusinara and the order in the south east with Pava as its capital. It extended as far in the south east with Pava as its capital. It extended as far in the east in the river Gandaka. In the west it extended upto Gorakhapur. In the north and the south it extended up to Nepal and the river Ganges respectively. Although it was an autonomous political unit, its Gananayakas were the members of the powerful Vajji Republic. Its representative in the Repulican Council were entited to vote. The centre of the Vajji Republic lay in Videha in the Ganges which divided the Vajji from Magadha.

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Source : From "Bhagavan Mahavira"

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