bring about favorable consequences. The term became an even more
significant part of the path to ultimate liberation for Jains and Buddhists
than it was for the Upanis.adic thinkers.
The terms moks.aanddharmacould be found in Upanis.adic discussions.
Derived from the verb dhr.(to hold up/bear/support), dharmaappeared to
represent a fundamental cosmic principle – the larger cosmos “supported”
all beings within it, while all beings were obliged to “support” the cosmos. It
epitomized the principle whereby one lived within the world. Moks.awas
release from all the world’s processes. If the universe were imagined to be a
gigantic gyroscope, moks.awould represent the axis around which it spun
where there was total quiescence. One inched toward that axis in search of
moks.abut in such a way that the reciprocity of dharmawas maintained.
Dharmawas living with the “system,” engaging in appropriate legal, ritual,
and social behavior while working one’s way toward the ultimate possibility
ofmoks.a. The practice of dharmaassumed greater significance in subsequent
centuries within vaidikacircles.
Finally,samsa ̄rawas the cyclical process of death, life, devolution, and
renewability – the logical consequence of the law of karma. The term samsa ̄ra
represented the world of change and transience that came to be viewed in
a variety of ways in subsequent schools. The Upanis.adic sages tended to view
this “sea of change” as the arena from which one sought liberation (moks.a),
on which one practiced dharmaor ritual to chart an appropriate course. For
the Buddhists, this domain was impermanent and fraught with a sense of
the unsatisfactory. For later theists, samsa ̄rawas the realm in which the deity
became manifest and offered “grace.”
The “heterodoxies”
During this same period the Gangetic basin was alive with other kinds of
seekers and schools of speculation, less oriented by vaidikaimagery, though
not necessarily ignorant of it. A certain mood or temper characterized much
of this speculation. For example, just as in the Upanis.adsone hears of indi-
vidual teachers by name, so it is that individuals in the valley became more
dominant as shapers of public discourse: a king or chieftain could control
an urban complex; an individual could be a teacher and even a paradigm
or model to be followed. There was less interest in the class system perpetu-
ated in the vaidikacircles and more emphasis on classlessness or at least the
accessibility of salvation to all irrespective of birth. In fact, these “heterodox”
systems were often initiated by ra ̄janyas(members of the royal communities)
and other non-brahmans, though not a few brahmans also became involved.
Followers of these movements were often drawn from the trades and other
36 The Early Urban Period