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Jainism
Mahavira
(540 BC - 467 BC) founded the sect of Jainism. Vardhamana Mahavira was
born in a village near Vaishali in north Bihar. His father a ruler of that
area and his mother a princess. He left home at the age of thirty and
started practicing penances in search of knowledge. After twelve years, he
attained the state called Nirvana (enlightenment). He was acclaimed as the
twenty-fourth Tirthankara and one of the great spiritual teachers.
The 23 earlier Tirthankaras, about whom practically nothing is known, are
prehistoric in character. Only the last one is a historical personage,
Parshvanatha.
The
sect of Jainism does not recognize caste, deities or sacrifices and is
pledged to the non-taking of life. All Jains are strict vegetarians.
Jainism stresses that there was no need for any vedic ceremonies and
invoking the gods for help. It told its followers that their deeds should
be based on the three jewels (Ratnas) - Right faith, Right knowledge, and
Right action. The five vows of Jainism are: non-injury to living beings,
truth, and non-stealing, not to own property and to practice chastity.
Parshva laid down the first four vows; Mahavira, who also asked his
followers to abandon clothes and go about naked, added the last one. This
implied that the Jain monks had to observe absolute chastity, abandon all
worldly pleasure and possessions and practice progressive tapas or
asceticism with long periods of fasting, self-mortification, meditation
and study.
According
to Jains, the Vedas and Brahmanas are not reliable and may be disregarded.
Jainism possesses it's own scriptures. At first, Jain teaching was
preserved in an oral tradition. But, in the third century BC, at a council
convened in Pataliputra, it was collated and recorded, the final version
being edited in the fifth century AD. At the time of the council, Jains
were divided into two sects - the Digambara and the Svetambara. Possibly,
the split into two sects was due to a number of Jain monks moving down
south and the subsequent differences in ascetic practices. The basic
religious principles remained the same, but they differed among themselves
on minor dogmas, mythological details and ascetic practices.
Jainism received patronage from the kings of the time, including
Chandragupta Maurya. In the south, royal dynasties such as the Gangas,
Kadambas, Chalukyas and Rashtrakutas patronized Jainism. In Gujarat,
patronage came from wealthy merchants. The concrete expression of
Jainism's religious zeal is seen all over the country in works of art and
architecture.
The
57-foot high statue of Gommateshvara at Sravana Belagola in Mysore,
erected in 983 or 984 AD is a marvel of its kind. The temples at Mount Abu
and those at Palithana in Gujarat and Moodabidri and Karkala in the south
make a rich contribution to the Indian heritage.
Buddhism
Gautama
Buddha
(563 BC - 483 BC), founded Buddhism. He was a contemporary of Mahavira. He
was born in a Kshatriya family in Kapilvastu, in the foothills of Nepal.
His father, who feared a prophecy, according to which his only son would
renounce the world, kept him in a little Garden of Eden, surrounded by
luxury & beauty.
One day, the young prince drove his chariot through the city unannounced,
and for the first time in his life, saw an old man, a sick man, and a
corpse. The shock was so great that he began to meditate on the meaning of
life. At the age of twenty-nine, he abandoned his beautiful wife, who had
just borne him a son and left home. After prolonged wandering, studies and
mortification he arrived at Bodh Gaya (in what is now the Indian state of
Bihar). There, under a pipal tree, he attained enlightenment at the age of
thirty-five.
From
then on, he became known as the Buddha. He passed away at the age of
eighty at Kusinagara in eastern Uttar Pradesh. Buddha discarded Vedic
religion in its totality. He strongly opposed rituals, sacrifices and
ceremonial worship. He condemned the caste system as being false and
wrong. Like Jainism, it was also atheistic in nature. The existence of God
is irrelevant to the Buddhist doctrine. Buddha laid emphasis on
self-effort and nothing was left to divine intervention. He also believed
that the soul does not exist. The attainment of Nirvana (Salvation) is the
chief objective of Buddhism.
The four truths enunciated by Buddha form the basis of Buddhism:
1. Suffering (Dukha) exists wherever there is life.
2. Desire is the cause of suffering.
3. Release from pain can be achieved only by abandoning desire.
4. The last concerns the way out of this circle of suffering and
rebirth.
The
universal appeal of Buddha's message captured the imagination of the
intellectuals and the common man alike. And Buddhism spread like a breath
of fresh wind from the mountains. It won the patronage of many states like
Magadha, Kosala and Kausambi. Great kings like Ashoka and Kanishka were
great patrons of Buddhism. Ashoka' son, Mahendra and daughter Sanghamitra preached Buddhism in Ceylon and the
king of Ceylon became Buddhist.
It is well known that the Buddha himself wrote nothing. Spiritual
influence, and personal example apart, his teaching was communicated
entirely by oral means. After Buddha's death, the first Buddhist council
met at Rajgriha. Here, the discourses of Buddha were collected, compiled
and embodied in the Pali Cannon, also known as Triptika.
It
was at the fourth council, held in Kashmir in the early second century AD
that the schism in Buddhism was recognized. One branch was called Hinayana
and the other, Mahayana. Eventually, Hinayana Buddhism found its
stronghold in Ceylon, Burma and the countries of Southeast Asia, whereas
Mahayana Buddhism became the dominant sect in India, central Asia, Tibet,
China and Japan.
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