Buddhism in India

The Background to Buddhism 41

and shravikas), building a solid organisational framework that

some believe ensured the survival of the Jains up to today (Sangave

1997: 2; the later Jains were more male chauvinist). Jainism,

though, mainly called its adherents away from the householder’s

life, in which violence of some sort was seen as inevitable, and the

morality it preached for householders could be at most only a

watered-down version of that for renouncers.

With all these contending trends of thought, the first millennium

BCE was one of intensified debate, linked to the seeking and question-

ing of wandering philosophers, and when all kinds of theories and

ideas were freely and energetically propounded. It was a period

not only of economic growth, but also of intellectual dynamism.

However, it was also the period when the Brahmanical philosophies,

which went counter to all kinds of growth and dynamism, were

formulated. Since these also provided the background for the

Buddha’s intervention, it is important to examine them.

The Self-creation of the Brahmans

Indian Brahmans as they have evolved over the centuries represent

one of the most unique elites that any society has produced. They

trace their origins back to Vedic times, where they were priests of

the sacrifice, and it was as priests, intellectuals and possessors of the

Vedas that they appear in the middle of first millennium BCE society.

However, it would be a mistake to see the Brahmans, identified as

a social group in the first millennium BCE, in ‘essentialist’ terms, as

lineal descendents of Vedic priests, just as it is a mistake to take the

Khattiyas as descendents of Vedic warriors or rajanyas. Both

claimed purity of descent, but this was a self-serving mythologising.

Thapar has argued that Brahmans of non-Aryan origin were

attested to in legends of sages such as Agasthya and Vasistha who

are said to have been born from jars and of a Rig Vedic seer being

described as dasiputrahor ‘son of a slave’ (Thapar 1984: 52). Some

Pali texts, for example the Ambattha Suttanta(see Chapter 3) indi-

cate that they may also have included illegitimate offspring of the

Khattiyas. Even the Upanishads show that an occasional man of

questionable birth could be accepted as a disciple and taken into

the line of ‘Brahmans’; for instance, in theChandogya Upanishad,

Satyakama Jabala’s mother tells him, ‘Darling, I do not know what

karma—it was violence, killing, evil actions which caused bad
karma and rebirth; and they took as their goal liberation from the
whole cycle, release from rebirth. In Jainism, in contrast to the
psychological interpretation given by Buddhism, this process is
viewed materialistically and literally. The Jains interpreted the cosmos
in terms of a classic dualism: the two main principles were jiva(life,
or soul) and ajiva(usually translated as matter). There was jivain
all things, from stones to animals to humans and gods; and every
jivawas eternally separated from others. No ‘transfer’ of merit
could occur; salvation or release form the cycle of birth had to be
won, painfully, by each individual jiva.In this sense the Jains were
firmly individualistic, as was the whole samana tradition to some
degree or another. Soul and matter, or jiva and ajiva,were bound
to each other, intermixed with each other; karma itself was a kind
of very etherialised matter which clung to the soul. Freedom from
karma and rebirth came through working out the bad karma; in part
this was a matter of a process continuing from one birth to another,
but it could be hastened through renunciation and austerities.
(Sangve 1997: 18–57).
Thus the Jains were rigorously non-violent (to the point of wearing
cloths across their mouths so they would not inadvertently kill
any insects), celibate, and set themselves to endure often painful
austerities. Ritual suicide, brought about by refusing to eat or
drink, was the preferred ending of a pious Jain’s life.
Much of this sounds similar to the dualism that spread later
through the Middle East and then European society; dualistic
themes similar to those in the Jain philosophy also appeared about
the same time in Iran in the Zoroaster reformation, though there
they emphasised a god (Ahura Mazda) and an evil supreme being,
in contrast to the Jains, who denied the existence of any supreme
god.
The Jain tradition has the credit of having one of the earliest
historically attested sages of the period. Its most famous teacher
in the Buddha’s time, Mahavira, was thought by the Jains to be only
the 24th of a series of tirthankaras(‘ford-makers’) going back to the
Indus civilisation. The previous one, Parshanatha, is a recorded
historical person dating probably around the end of the 9th century
BCE—before Buddhism and the Upanishads. Parshanatha apparently
organised both men and women followers into groups of ascetics
(munisor sadhus, and sadhvis) and groups of lay followers (shravakas

40 Buddhism in India