Jainism is one of the oldest religions in the world, so
old that we cannot with certainty date its beginnings. Jain tradition
tells that Mahavira twenty-forth and last of the Tirthankara or Prophets
of the current cycle of the time. Some of the stories about them are truly
amazing and non- Jains are rarely convinced. They are credited with
enormously long spans of life and gigantic size and various other
miraculous attributes. Leaving aside the stories (which are valuable if
regarded as edifying stories), we have some historical details about some
of them. The first Tirthankara was Rsabha and there are some accounts in
non-Jain records which seem to fit in with the broad details of Jain
tradition. He is recorded as a king of some ability who gave up his throne
to become a wandering ascetic, going around naked (a symbol of total
renunciation of worldly possessions) and frequently scorned or attacked by
the ignorant. After Rsabha, Jain tradition gives us the names and some
details if the next twenty Tirthankara. They were all men except perhaps
the nineteenth, Malli, who is said to have been a woman (though this is
not accepted by all Jains.) The twenty- second, Neminatha or Aristanemi
(both names are found) is said to have been a relative and contemporary of
the Hindu God hero Krishna.
With the twenty-third Tirthankara, Parsva, modern
scholars fins themselves on stronger ground. He is recorded as the son of
the king of Varanasi (Benaras), the greatest holy city in India. He
renounced the worlds at the age of thirty and after a fairly brief period
of meditation and austerity he attained enlightenment. Thereafter he
preached his message and gathered followers around him. He died, reputedly
at the age of 100, passing to his final abode of bliss as a liberated
soul. This was about 250 years before the time of Mahavira: Mahavira's
parents were followers of the religion of Parsva. He taught four of the
five great moral precepts of Jainism, non-violence, truthfulness, non-
stealing and non-acquisitiveness, omitting, for reasons which have been
disputed, the vow of sexual restraint which was introduced or reintroduced
by Mahavira. So with Parsva the Jain religion emerges clearly into the
light of history, through darkness falls again in the period between the
attainment of moksa or liberation by Parsva in the Parasanatha Hills (in
Bihar) around 780 B.C.
We have looked at Mahavira's life in the first chapter.
A great many people were impressed by Mahavira's personality and his
teachings so that when his life on earth ended he left behind a large
number of people (reputed to be as many as a third of a million) who were
trying in various ways, in the vocation of Monk (sadhu) or nun (sadhvi) or
as lay men (shravaka) and women (shravika), to follow the principles of
Jainism. In his lifetime Mahavira appointed eleven leaders (ganadhara)among
his followers. Only two of them, Indrabhuti Gautama and Sudharman. were
alive at the time of Mahavira's moksa and it was to Sudharman that the
task fell of preserving and passing on the teachings of their master, and
leading the community, when Mahavira was no longer with them. The order of
nuns was headed by Chandana. She had been placed in this position by
Mahavira: nuns have always had a important place in Jainism and it is said
that the nuns under Chandana outnumbered the Jain monks of the time by
more than two to one.
Mahavira and his early followers lived in north-eastern
part of India, mainly in ancient kingdom of Magadh (in modern Bihar). Jain
missionaries visited Kashmir and even Nepal but it was not until several
centuries after Mahavira that Gujarat and the western part of India became
the major center of Jainism as it is today. How ever Jainism spread
southwards from Magadha into the kingdom of Kalinga (in modern Orissa)
whose ruler became a convert. This king, Kharavela, lived in the second or
third B.C. We learn from an inscription that he was a pious Jain and
provided for monks but he appears to not to have seen military expeditions
as incompatible with his religion. This area became an important center of
Jainism in the earlier centuries, though we must not forget that we are
speaking several hundred years after Mahavira. Much in Indian history of
this period is not yet completely clear to historians and the spread of
Jainism has to be priced together from scattered, and sometimes cryptic,
references. However, for the first centuries it is clear that the centers
of this religion were in eastern India. There seem to have been Jains in
Bengal from very early times.
The teachings of Jainism made a considerable impact
amongst all classes of society. There is even a story that the great
emperor Chandragupta Maurya, around 300 B.C., became a Jain monk at the
end of his life. Chandragupta's grandson, Asoka, ruled over an empire
which included all the sub-continent except the extreme south. As his
capital was in the region of Magadha he was doubtless familiar with the
Jains and they are mentioned in his records (though Asoka himself was a
Buddhist). However, one of Asoka's grandsons was certainly a Jain and he
did a lot to further the progress of his faith.
In a religion as ancient as Jainism it is natural that
interesting controversies about details of the faith emerge. Whilst Jains
are united on the fundamental questions, within that unity many different
sects and schools of thought coexist in a tolerant manner. These may be
the followers of one revered teacher or a group placing emphasis on
certain particular teachings. The important division is between the
Svetambara and the Digambara sections. 'Svetambara' means 'dressed in
white' and 'Digambara' means 'dressed in the sky', a reference to the fact
that Digambara monks renounce all worldly possessions, including clothes,
whilst the monks of the Svetambara section wear two pieces of white cloth.
The Svetambara (who form probably around two-thirds of all Jains, and the
very large majority of those in the United Kingdom) are found in
particular in Gujarat and the neighboring areas of western India. The
Digambara are strongest in south India. The origins of the split are not
clear. One account says that, probably some three hundred years B.C.,
there was a terrible famine in Bihar. The crops failed, people were dying
of starvation and this went on for twelve years. Some of the Jain monks,
led by Bhadrabahu, moved southwards away from the famine area. It is said
that the monks who left were more rigorous in certain ways than those who
stayed behind and when, after the famine was over, they came back it was
found that the two groups had drifted apart in some ways. In particular,
according to this account, before this time all Jain monks went naked but
those who stayed in the north had now taken to wearing a single piece of
cloth to cover themselves. Other accounts place the division much later,
possibly as late as the second century A.D. Quite probably it was not a
sudden split but a slow process. At any rate, to this day the Svetambara
and the Digambara differ on certain minor matters, not only the clothing
of monks but also such questions as whether a woman can achieve moksa (the
Digambara say not until she is reborn as a man), whether Mahavira was
married before he gave up the world, and some other points.
In these early centuries, of course, reading and
writing were not as common as they are today, and religious teachings (and
indeed all other literature, history, stories and songs) were preserved in
the memory of people. Mahavira's closest followers must have committed to
memory the things which he said in his preachments and after he left them
the responsibility of passing on the teachings fell on the new leader of
the community, Sudharman, whom we have mentioned above. For nearly two
centuries the collected teachings were handed down by word of mouth. It
seems wonderful to us today that a man could retain in his memory the
fourteen Purva texts, each of them quite a lengthy work, which made up the
basic part of the sacred literature of the Jains. But the Jain monks of
those early centuries lived a much simpler life than we do today, without
the distractions of our complicated modern civilization. Moreover they
doubtless did train their memories for the repetition of long texts. Even
so it appears that memories were not infallible and only ten of the
fourteen Purva texts were still known 200 years after Mahavira. They have
now all been lost, though much of their teaching (which was said to go
back in part to the time of Parsva) was preserved in other texts, like the
twelve Anga texts, eleven of which survive to this day.
The last man who knew all the scriptures by heart was
Bhadrabahu and he died 170 years after Mahavira. About that time, around
360 B.C., the Jains were concerned that the memory of the holy scriptures
might get lost. It was a difficult time in parts of India with a long
famine and the death or dispersal of many monks. Hence a great conference
of monks was held at Pataliputra (now called Patna, in Bihar) when the
contents of the sacred texts (those which had not been lost) were put in
order. Not all Jains believe today that the original scriptures have
survived. The Digambara in general feel that the original texts eventually
disappeared from knowledge over a fairly long period of time. Some modern
scholars believe that some re-editing of the texts must have taken place
so that they are not exactly in the original form. Many centuries after
the conference at Pataliputra another conference was held at Valabhi,
around 460 A.D. when all the sacred scriptures were finally written down,
the twelve Anga texts representing the oldest section, with a further
thirty-four works which are recognize as rather later in time. There is no
doubt that, in spite of some differences of opinion about it, the Jains
still have today a collection of ancient religious literature which
contains the noble teaching of Mahavira as it was followed two thousand
and more years ago. For a very long time these scriptures were studied
only by monks and learned men. The language in which they were compiled,
called Ardhamagadhi, was once the language of ordinary people in Magadha
so that the teachings of Mahavira (who preached in this language) could be
understood by them. But Ardhamagadhi died out as a spoken language and
only scholars could understood it (though most Jains today know at least
some of the ancient prayers in the beautiful and solemn ancient tongue).
In recent years, however, many of the Jain writings have been translated
into modern Indian languages, as well as into English and other European
languages, so that with little trouble we can obtain and read them today.
We have been talking about matters which cover many,
many centuries of time. Generation after generation passed, of people much
like ourselves, even though they lived two thousand and more years ago.
They had the same hopes and fears, the same joys and sorrows. And like
Jains everywhere today they had the teachings of Mahavira to guide and
support them.
