CHAPTER VI
RELIGIOUS LIFE IN PRE-BUDDHIST INDIA
In reading the Brâhmaṅas and older Upanishads we often wish we knew more of the writers and their lives. Rarely can so many representative men have bequeathed so much literature and yet left so dim a sketch of their times. Thought was their real life: of that they have given a full record, imperfect only in chronology, for though their speculations are often set forth in a narrative form, we hear surprisingly little about contemporary events.
The territory familiar to these works is the western part of the modern United Provinces with the neighbouring districts of the Panjab, the lands of the Kurus, Pancâlas, and Matsyas, all in the region of Agra and Delhi, and further east Kâśi (Benares) with Videha or Tirhut. Gândhâra was known[201] but Magadha and Bengal are not mentioned. Even in the Buddha's lifetime they were still imperfectly brahmanized.
What we know of the period 800 to 600 B.C. is mostly due to the Brahmans, and many Indianists have accepted their view, that they were then socially the highest class and the repository of religion and culture. But it is clear from Buddhist writings (which, however, are somewhat later) that this pre-eminence was not unchallenged[202], and many admissions in the Brâhmaṅas and Upanishads indicate that some centuries before the Buddha the Kshatriyas held socially the first rank and shared intellectual honours with the Brahmans. Janaka, king of Videha[203], and Yâjñavalkya, the Brahman, meet on terms of mutual respect and other Kshatriyas, such as Ajâtaśatru of Kâśi and Pravâhaṅa Jaivali are represented as instructing Brahmans, and the latter in doing so says "this knowledge did not go to any Brahman before but belonged to the Kshatriyas alone[204]." But as a profession theology, both practical and speculative, was left to the Brahmans.
The proper relation between the nobles and Brahmans finds expression in the office of Purohita[205] or domestic chaplain, which is as old as the Vedas and has lasted to the present day. In early times he was not merely a spiritual guide but also a councillor expected to advise the king as to his enterprises and secure their success by appropriate rites. By king we should understand a tribal chief, entrusted with considerable powers in the not infrequent times of war, but in peace obliged to consult the clan, or at least the aristocratic part of it, on all matters of importance. A Purohita might attain a very high position, like Devabhaga, priest of both the Kurus and Srinjayas[206]. The Brahmans did not attempt to become kings, but the sacred books insist that though a Brahman can do without a king, yet a king cannot do without a Brahman. The two castes are compared to the deities Mitra and Varuṅa, typifying intelligence and will. When they are united deeds can be done[207]. But "the Gods do not eat the food of a king who is without a Purohita." Other castes can offer sacrifices only by the mediation of Brahmans, and it does not appear that kings disputed this, though they claimed the right to think for themselves and may have denied the utility of sacrifice[208]. Apart from kings the duties and claims of the Brahman extend to the people at large. He has four virtues, "birth, deportment, fame and the perfecting of the people," and in return the people owe him respect, liberality, security against oppression and against capital punishment.
Towns in this period must have been few and those few essentially forts, not collections of palaces and temples. We hear of Kâśi (Benares) but the name may signify a district. People are said to go to the Kurus or Pancâlas, not to Mithilâ or any other city. It was in village life—which is still the life of the greater part of India—that Brahmanism grew up. Probably then as now Brahman families occupied separate villages, or at least quarters, and were allowed to hold the land rent free as a reward for rendering religious services to the king. They followed various professions but the life which was most respected, and also most lucrative, was that devoted to the study and practice of sacred science, that is the learning and recitation of sacred texts, performance of ceremonies, and theological discussion. The later law books divide a Brahman's life into four stages or âśramas in which he was successively a student, a householder, a hermit and an ascetic[209]. The third and fourth stages are not very clearly distinguished. A hermit is supposed to renounce family life and live in the forest, but still to perform sacrifices, whereas the Sannyâsi or perfect ascetic, in many ways the ideal of India, subsists on alms, freed alike from duties and passions and absorbed in meditation. In the older Upanishads three stages are indicated as part of contemporary practice[210]. For a period of from nine to thirty-six years, a Brahman dwelt with a teacher. While his state of pupilage lasted he lived on alms and was bound by the severest vows of obedience and chastity. The instruction given consisted in imparting sacred texts which could be acquired only by hearing them recited, for writing, though it may have been known in India as early as the seventh century B.C., was not used for literature. The Śatapatha Brâhmaṇa recommends the study not only of the four Vedas but of the precepts (perhaps grammar, etymology, etc.), the sciences (perhaps philosophy), dialogues (no doubt such as those found in the Upanishads), traditions and ancient legends, stanzas and tales of heroes[211], showing that, besides the scriptures, more popular compositions which doubtless contained the germs of the later Epics and Puranas were held in esteem.
On terminating his apprenticeship the young Brahman became a householder and married, moderate polygamy being usual. To some extent he followed the occupations of an ordinary man of business and father of a family, but the most important point in establishing a home of his own was the kindling of his own sacred fire[212], and the householder's life was regarded as a series of rites, such as the daily offering of milk, the new and full moon ceremonies, seasonal sacrifices every four months and the Soma sacrifice once a year, besides oblations to ancestors and other domestic observances. The third stage of life should begin when a householder sees that his hair is turning grey and a grandson has been born. He should then abandon his home and live in the forest. The tradition that it is justifiable and even commendable for men and women to abandon their families and take to the religious life has at all times been strong in India and public opinion has never considered that the deserted party had a grievance. No doubt comfortable householders were in no hurry to take to the woods and many must always have shirked the duty. But on the other hand, the very pious, of whom India has always produced a superabundance, were not willing to bear the cares of domestic life and renounced the world before the prescribed time. On the whole Brahmanic (as opposed to Buddhist) literature is occupied in insisting not so much that the devout should abandon the world as that they must perform the ritual observances prescribed for householders before doing so.
The Brahman's existence as drawn in the law-books is a description of what the writers thought ought to be done rather than of the general practice. Still it cannot be dismissed as imaginary, for the Nambutiri[213] Brahmans of Travancore have not yet abandoned a mode of life which is in essentials that prescribed by Manu and probably that led by Brahmans in the seventh century B.C. or earlier[214].
They are for the most part landowners dwelling in large houses built to accommodate a patriarchal family and erected in spacious compounds. In youth they spend about eight years in learning the Veda, and in mature life religious ceremonies, including such observances as bathing and the preparation of meals, occupy about six hours of the day. As a profession, the performance of religious rites for others is most esteemed. In food, drink and pleasures, the Nambutiris are almost ascetics: their rectitude, punctiliousness and dignity still command exaggerated respect. But they seem unproductive and petrified, even in such matters as literature and scholarship, and their inability to adapt themselves to changing conditions threatens them with impoverishment and deterioration.
Yet the ideal Brahmanic life, which by no means excludes intellectual activity, is laid out in severe and noble lines and though on its good side somewhat beyond the reach of human endeavour and on its bad side overloaded with pedantry and superstition, it combines in a rare degree self-abnegation and independence. It differs from the ideal set up by Buddhism and by many forms of Hinduism which preach the renunciation of family ties, for it clearly lays down that it is a man's duty to continue his family and help his fellow men just as much as to engage in religious exercises. Thus, the Śatapatha Brâhmaṇa[215] teaches that man is born owing four debts, one to the gods, one to the Rishis or the sages to whom the Vedic hymns were revealed, one to his ancestors and one to men. To discharge these obligations he must offer sacrifices, study the Veda, beget a son and practise hospitality.
The tranquil isolation of village life in ancient India has left its mark on literature. Though the names of teachers are handed down and their opinions cited with pious care, yet for many centuries after the Vedic age we find no books attributed to human authors. There was an indifference to literary fame among these early philosophers and a curious selflessness. Doctors disputed as elsewhere, yet they were at no pains to couple their names with theories or sects. Like the Jewish Rabbis they were content to go down to posterity as the authors of a few sayings, and these are mostly contributions to a common stock with no pretension to be systems of philosophy. The Upanishads leave an impression of a society which, if reposeful, was also mentally alert and tolerant to an unusual degree. Much was absent that occupied the intelligence of other countries. Painting, sculpture and architecture can have attained but modest proportions and the purview of religion included neither temples nor images. India was untroubled by foreign invasions and all classes seem to have been content to let the Kshatriyas look after such internal politics as there were. Trade too was on a small scale. Doubtless the Indian was then, as now, a good man of business and the western coast may have been affected by its relations with the Persian Gulf, but Brahmanic civilization was a thing of the Midland and drew no inspiration from abroad. The best minds were occupied with the leisurely elaboration and discussion of speculative ideas and self-effacement was both practised and preached.
But movement and circulation prevented this calm rustic world from becoming stagnant. Though roads were few and dangerous, a habit of travel was conspicuous among the religious and intellectual classes. The Indian is by nature a pilgrim rather than a stationary monk, and we often hear of Brahmans travelling in quest of knowledge alone or in companies, and stopping in rest houses[216]. In the Śatapatha Brâhmaṇa[217], Uddâlaka Âruṇi is represented as driving about and offering a piece of gold as a prize to those who could defeat him in argument. Great sacrifices were often made the occasion of these discussions. We must not think of them as mere religious ceremonies, as a sort of high mass extending over several days. The fact that they lasted so long and involved operations like building sheds and altars made them unlike our church services and gave opportunities for debate and criticism of what was done. Such competition and publicity were good for the wits. The man who cut the best figure in argument was in greatest demand as a sacrificer and obtained the highest fees. But these stories of prizes and fees emphasize a feature which has characterized the Brahmans from Vedic times to the present day, namely, their shameless love of money. The severest critic cannot deny them a disinterested taste for intellectual, religious and spiritual things, but their own books often use language which shows them as professional men merely anxious to make a fortune by the altar. "The sacrifice is twofold," says the Śatapatha Brâhmaṇa, "oblations to the gods and gifts to the priests. With oblations men gratify the gods and with gifts the human gods. These two kinds of gods when gratified convey the worshipper to the heavenly world[218]." Without a fee the sacrifice is as dead as the victim. It is the fee which makes it living and successful[219].
Tradition has preserved the names of many of these acute, argumentative, fee-loving priests, but of few can we form any clear picture. The most distinguished is Yâjñavalkya who, though seen through a mist of myths and trivial stories about the minutiae of ritual, appears as a personality with certain traits that are probably historical. Many remarks attributed to him are abrupt and scornful and the legend indicates dimly that he was once thought a dangerous innovator. But, as has happened so often since, this early heretic became the corner stone of later orthodoxy. He belonged to the school of the Yajur Veda and was apparently the main author of the new or White recension in which the prayers and directions are more or less separate, whereas in the old or Black recension they are mixed together. According to the legend he vomited forth the texts which he had learnt, calling his fellow pupils "miserable and inefficient Brahmans," and then received a new revelation from the Sun[220]. The quarrel was probably violent for the Śatapatha Brâhmaṇa mentions that he was cursed by priests of the other party. Nor does this work, while recognizing him as the principal teacher, endorse all his sayings. Thus it forbids the eating of beef but adds the curious remark "Nevertheless Yâjñavalkya said, I for one eat it, provided it is tender[221]." Remarkable, too, is his answer to the question what would happen if all the ordinary materials for sacrifices were absent, "Then indeed nothing would be offered here, but there would be offered the truth in faith[222]." It is probable that the Black Yajur Veda represents the more western schools and that the native land of the White recension and of Yâjñavalkya lay further east, perhaps in Videha. But his chief interest for us is not the reforms in text and ritual which he may have made, but his philosophic doctrines of which I have already spoken. Our principal authority for them is the Bṛihad-Âraṇyaka Upanishad of which he is the protagonist, much as Socrates is of the Platonic dialogues. Unfortunately the striking picture which it gives of Yâjñavalkya cannot be accepted as historical. He is a prominent figure in the Śatapatha Brâhmaṇa which is older than the Upanishad and represents an earlier stage of speculation. The sketch of his doctrines which it contains is clearly a preliminary study elaborated and amplified in the Upanishad. But if a personage is introduced in early works as expounding a rudimentary form of certain doctrines and in later works is credited with a matured philosophy, there can be little doubt that he has become a great name whose authority is invoked by later thought, much as Solomon was made the author of the Proverbs and Ecclesiastes and the Song which bears his name.
Yâjñavalkya appears in the Bṛihad-Âraṇyaka as the respected friend but apparently not the chaplain of King Janaka. This monarch celebrated a great sacrifice and offered a thousand cows with a present of money to him who should prove himself wisest. Yâjñavalkya rather arrogantly bade his pupil drive off the beasts. But his claim was challenged: seven Brahmans and one woman, Gârgî Vâcaknavî, disputed with him at length but had to admit his superiority. A point of special interest is raised by the question what happens after death. Yâjñavalkya said to his questioner, "'Take my hand, my friend. We two alone shall know of this. Let this question of ours not be discussed in public.' Then these two went out and argued, and what they said was Karma and what they praised was Karma[223]." The doctrine that a man's deeds cause his future existence and determine its character was apparently not popular among the priesthood who claimed that by their rites they could manufacture heavenly bodies for their clients.
2
This imperfect and sketchy picture of religious life in India so far as it can be gathered from the older Brahmanic books has reference mainly to the kingdoms of the Kuru-Pancâlas and Videha in 800-600 B.C. Another picture, somewhat fuller, is found in the ancient literature of the Buddhists and Jains, which depicts the kingdoms of Magadha (Bihar) and Kosala (Oudh) in the time of the Buddha and Mahâvîra, the founder of Jainism, that is, about 500 B.C. or rather earlier. It is probable that the picture is substantially true for this period or even for a period considerably earlier, for Mahâvîra was supposed to have revived with modifications the doctrines of Parśvanâtha and some of the Buddhas mentioned as preceding Gotama were probably historical personages. But the Brahmanic and Buddhist accounts do not give two successive phases of thought in the same people, for the locality is not quite the same. Both pictures include the territory of Kâśi and Videha, but the Brahmanic landscape lies mainly to the west and the Buddhist mainly to the east of this region. In the Buddhist sphere it is clear that in the youth of Gotama Brahmanic doctrines and ritual were well known but not predominant. It is hardly demonstrable from literature, but still probable, that the ideas and usages which found expression in Jainism and Buddhism existed in the western districts, though less powerful there than in the east[224].
A striking feature of the world in which Jainism and Buddhism arose was the prevalence of confraternities or religious orders. They were the recognized form of expression not only for piety but for the germs of theology, metaphysics and science. The ordinary man of the world kept on good terms with such gods as came his way, but those who craved for some higher interest often separated themselves from the body of citizens and followed some special rule of life. In one sense the Brahmans were the greatest of such communities, but they were a hereditary corporation and though they were not averse to new ideas, their special stock in trade was an acquaintance with traditional formulæ and rites. They were also, in the main, sedentary and householders. Somewhat opposed to them were other companies, described collectively as Paribbâjakas or Samanas[225]. These, though offering many differences among themselves, were clearly distinguished from the Brahmans, and it is probable that they usually belonged to the warrior caste. But they did not maintain that religious knowledge was the exclusive privilege of any caste: they were not householders but wanderers and celibates. Often they were ascetics and addicted to extreme forms of self-mortification. They did not study the Vedas or perform sacrifices, and their speculations were often revolutionary, and as a rule not theistic. It is not easy to find any English word which describes these people or the Buddhist Bhikkhus. Monk is perhaps the best, though inadequate. Pilgrim and friar give the idea of wandering, but otherwise suggest wrong associations. But in calling them monks, we must remember that though celibates, and to some extent recluses (for they mixed with the world only in a limited degree), they were not confined in cloisters. The more stationary lived in woods, either in huts or the open air, but many spent the greater part of the year in wandering.
The practice of adopting a wandering religious life was frequent among the upper classes, and must have been a characteristic feature of society. No blame attached to the man who abruptly left his family, though well-to-do people are represented as dissuading their children from the step. The interest in philosophical and theological questions was perhaps even greater than among the Brahmans, and they were recognized not as parerga to a life of business or amusement, but as occupations in themselves. Material civilization had not kept pace with the growth of thought and speculation. Thus restless and inquisitive minds found little to satisfy them in villages or small towns, and the wanderer, instead of being a useless rolling stone, was likely not only to have a more interesting life but to meet with sympathy and respect. Ideas and discussion were plentiful but there were no books and hardly any centres of learning. Yet there was even more movement than among the travelling priests of the Kurus and Pancâlas, a coming and going, a trafficking in ideas. Knowledge was to be picked up in the market-places and highways. Up and down the main roads circulated crowds of highly intelligent men. They lived upon alms, that is to say, they were fed by the citizens who favoured their opinions or by those good souls who gave indiscriminately to all holy men—and in the larger places rest houses were erected for their comfort. It was natural that the more commanding and original spirits should collect others round them and form bands, for though there was public discussion, writing was not used for religious purposes and he who would study any doctrine had to become the pupil of a master. The doctrine too involved a discipline, or mode of life best led in common. Hence these bands easily grew into communities which we may call orders or sects, if we recognize that their constitution was more fluid and less formal than is implied by those words. It is not easy to say how much organization such communities possessed before the time of the Buddha. His Sangha was the most successful of them all and doubtless surpassed the others in this as in other respects. Yet it was modelled on existing institutions and the Vinaya Pitaka[226] itself represents him as prescribing the observance of times and seasons, not so much because he thought it necessary as because the laity suggested that he would do well to follow the practice of the Titthiya schools. By this phrase we are to understand the adherents of Makkhali Gosâla, Sâñjaya Belaṭṭhiputta and others. We know less about these sects than we could wish, but two lists of schools or theories are preserved, one in the Brahmajâla Sutta[227] where the Buddha himself criticises 62 erroneous views and another in Jain literature[228], which enumerates no fewer than 363.
Both catalogues are somewhat artificial, and it is clear that many views are mentioned not because they represent the tenets of real schools but from a desire to condemn all possible errors. But the list of topics discussed is interesting. From the Brahmajâla Sutta we learn that the problems which agitated ancient Magadha were such as the following:--is the world eternal or not: is it infinite or finite: is there a cause for the origin of things or is it without cause: does the soul exist after death: if so, is its existence conscious or unconscious: is it eternal or does it cease to exist, not necessarily at the end of its present life but after a certain number of lives: can it enjoy perfect bliss here or elsewhere? Theories on these and other points are commonly called vâda or talk, and those who hold them vâdins. Thus there is the Kâla-vâda[229] which makes Time the origin and principle of the universe, and the Svabhâva-vada which teaches that things come into being of their own accord. This seems crude when stated with archaic frankness but becomes plausible if paraphrased in modern language as "discontinuous variation and the spontaneous origin of definite species." There were also the Niyati-vâdins, or fatalists, who believed that all that happens is the result of Niyati or fixed order, and the Yadricchâ-vâdins who, on the contrary, ascribed everything to chance and apparently denied causation, because the same result follows from different antecedents. It is noticeable that none of these views imply theism or pantheism but the Buddha directed so persistent a polemic against the doctrine of the Âtman that it must have been known in Magadha. The fundamental principles of the Sânkhya were also known, though perhaps not by that name. It is probably correct to say not that the Buddha borrowed from the Sânkhya but that both he and the Sânkhya accepted and elaborated in different ways certain current views.
The Pali Suttas[230] mention six agnostic or materialist teachers and give a brief but perhaps not very just compendium of their doctrines. One of them was the founder of the Jains who, as a sect that has lasted to the present day with a considerable record in art and literature, merit a separate chapter. Of the remaining five, one, Sâñjaya of the Belaṭṭha clan, was an agnostic, similar to the people described elsewhere[231] as eel-wrigglers, who in answer to such questions as, is there a result of good and bad actions, decline to say either (a) there is, (b) there is not, (c) there both is and is not, (d) there neither is nor is not. This form of argument has been adopted by Buddhism for some important questions but Sâñjaya and his disciples appear to have applied it indiscriminately and to have concluded that positive assertion is impossible.
The other four were in many respects what we should call fatalists and materialists[232], or in the language of their time Akriya-vâdins, denying, that is, free will, responsibility and the merit or demerit of good or bad actions. They nevertheless believed in metempsychosis and practised asceticism. Apparently they held that beings are born again and again according to a natural law, but not according to their deeds: and that though asceticism cannot accelerate the soul's journey, yet at a certain stage it is a fore-ordained and indispensable preliminary to emancipation. The doctrines attributed to all four are crude and startling. Perhaps they are exaggerated by the Buddhist narrator, but they also reflect the irreverent exuberance of young thought. Pûraṇa Kassapa denies that there is any merit in virtue or harm in murder. Another ascetic called Ajita of the garment of hair teaches that nothing exists but the four elements, and that "fools and wise alike are annihilated on the dissolution of the body and after death they are not." Then why, one asks, was he an ascetic? Similarly Pakudha Kaccâyana states that "when a sharp sword cleaves a head in twain" the soul and pain play a part similar to that played by the component elements of the sword and head. The most important of these teachers was Makkhali Gosâla. His doctrine comprises a denial of causation and free will and an assertion that fools and wise alike will make an end of pain after wandering through eighty-four hundred thousand births. The followers of this teacher were called ÂjÎvikas: they were a distinct body in the time of Asoka, and the name[233] occurs as late as the thirteenth century in South Indian inscriptions. Several accounts[234] of the founder are extant, but all were compiled by bitter opponents, for he was hated by Jains and Buddhists alike. His doctrine was closely allied to Jainism, especially the Digambara sect, but was probably more extravagant and anti-social. He appears to have objected to confraternities[235], to have enjoined a solitary life, absolute nudity and extreme forms of self-mortification, such as eating filth. The Jains accused his followers of immorality and perhaps they were ancient prototypes of the lower class of religious mendicants who have brought discredit on Hinduism.
3
None of the phases of religious life described above can be called popular. The religion of the Brahmans was the thought and science of a class. The various un-Brahmanic confraternities usually required their members to be wandering ascetics. They had little to say to village householders who must have constituted the great majority of the population. Also there are signs that priests and nobles, however much they quarrelled, combined to keep the lower castes in subjection[236]. Yet we can hardly doubt that then as now all classes were profoundly religious, and that just as to-day village deities unknown to the Vedas, or even to the Puranas, receive the worship of millions, so then there were gods and rites that did not lack popular attention though unnoticed in the scriptures of Brahmans and Buddhists.
We know little of this popular religion by direct description before or even during the Buddhist period, but we have fragmentary indications of its character. Firstly several incongruous observances have obtruded themselves into the Brahmanic ritual. Thus in the course of the Mahâvrata ceremony[237] the Hotri priest sits in a swing and maidens, carrying pitchers of water on their heads and singing, dance round an altar while drums are beaten. Parallels to this may be found to-day. The image of Krishna, or even a priest who represents Krishna, is swung to and fro in many temples, the use of drums in worship is distressingly common, and during the Pongol festivities in southern India young people dance round or leap over a fire. Other remarkable features in the Mahâvrata are the shooting of arrows into a target of skin, the use of obscene language (such as is still used at the Holi festival) and even obscene acts[238]. We must not assume that popular religion in ancient India was specially indecent, but it probably included ceremonies analogous to the Lupercalia and Thesmophoria, in which licence in words and deeds was supposed to promote fertility and prosperity.
We are also justified in supposing that offerings to ancestors and many ceremonies mentioned in the Gṛihya-sûtras or handbooks of domestic ritual were performed by far larger classes of the population than the greater sacrifices, but we have no safe criteria for distinguishing between priestly injunctions and the real practice of ancient times.
Secondly, in the spells and charms of the Atharva[239], which received the Brahmanic imprimatur later than the other three Vedas, we find an outlook differing from that of the other Vedas and resembling the popular religion of China. Mankind are persecuted by a host of evil spirits and protect themselves by charms addressed directly to their tormentors or by invoking the aid of beneficent powers. All nature is animated by good and evil spirits, to be dealt with like other natural advantages or difficulties, but not thought of as moral or spiritual guides. It is true that the Atharva often rises above this phase, for it consists not of simple folk-lore, but of folk-lore modified under-sacerdotal influence. The protecting powers invoked are often the gods of the Rig Veda[240], but prayers and incantations are also addressed directly to diseases[241] and demons[242] or, on the other hand, to healing plants and amulets[243]. We can hardly be wrong in supposing that in such invocations the Atharva reflects the popular practice of its time, but it prefers the invocation of counteracting forces, whether Vedic deities or magical plants, to the propitiation of malignant spirits, such as the worship of the goddesses presiding over smallpox and cholera which is still prevalent in India. In this there is probably a contrast between the ideas of the Aryan and non-Aryan races. The latter propitiate the demon or disease; the Aryans invoke a beneficent and healing power. But though on the whole the Atharva is inclined to banish the black spectres of popular demonology with the help of luminous Aryan gods, still we find invoked in it and in its subsidiary literature a multitude of spirits, good and bad, known by little except their names which, however, often suffice to indicate their functions. Such are Âśâpati (Lord of the region), Kshetrapati (Lord of the field), both invoked in ceremonies for destroying locusts and other noxious insects, Śakambhara and Apvâ, deities of diarrhoea, and Arâti, the goddess of avarice and grudge. In one hymn[244] the poet invokes, together with many Vedic deities, all manner of nature spirits, demons, animals, healing plants, seasons and ghosts. A similar collection of queer and vague personalities is found in the popular pantheon of China to-day[245].
Thirdly, various deities who are evidently considered to be well known, play some part in the Pali Pitakas. Those most frequently mentioned are Mahâbrahmâ or Brahmâ Sahampati, and Sakka or Indra, but not quite the same as the Vedic Indra and less in need of libations of Soma. In two curious suttas[246] deputations of deities, clearly intended to include all the important gods worshipped at the time, are represented as visiting the Buddha. In both lists a prominent position is given to the Four Great Kings, or Ruling Spirits of the Four Quarters, accompanied by retinues called Gandhabbas, Kumbhandas, Nâgas, and Yakkhas respectively, and similar to the Nats of Burma. The Gandhabbas (or Gandharvas) are heavenly musicians and mostly benevolent, but are mentioned in the Brâhmaṇas as taking possession of women who then deliver oracles. The Nâgas are serpents, sometimes represented as cobras with one or more heads and sometimes as half human: sometimes they live in palaces under the water or in the depths of the earth and sometimes they are the tutelary deities of trees. Serpent worship has undoubtedly been prevalent in India in all ages: indications of it are found in the earliest Buddhist sculptures and it still survives[247]. The Yakkhas (or Yakshas) though hardly demons (as their name is often rendered) are mostly ill disposed to the human race, sometimes man-eaters and often of unedifying conduct. The Mahâsamaya-sutta also mentions mountain spirits from the Himalaya, Satagiri, and Mount Vepulla. Of the Devas or chiefs of the Yakkhas in this catalogue only a few are known to Brahmanic works, such as Soma, Varuṇa, Veṇhu (Vishnu), the Yamas, Pajâpati, Inda (Indra), Sanan-kumâra. All these deities are enumerated together with little regard to the positions they occupy in the sacerdotal pantheon. The enquirer finds a similar difficulty when he tries in the twentieth century to identify rural deities, or even the tutelaries of many great temples, with any personages recognized by the canonical literature.
In several discourses attributed to the Buddha[248] is incorporated a tract called the Sîla-vagga, giving a list of practices of which he disapproved, such as divination and the use of spells and drugs. Among special observances censured, the following are of interest. (a) Burnt offerings, and offerings of blood drawn from the right knee. (b) The worship of the Sun, of Siri, the goddess of Luck, and of the Great One, meaning perhaps the Earth. (c) Oracles obtained from a mirror, or from a girl possessed by a spirit or from a god.
We also find allusions in Buddhist and Jain works as well as in the inscriptions of Asoka to popular festivals or fairs called Samajjas[249] which were held on the tops of hills and seem to have included music, recitations, dancing and perhaps dramatic performances. These meetings were probably like the modern mela, half religion and half entertainment, and it was in such surroundings that the legends and mythology which the great Epics show in full bloom first grew and budded.
Thus we have evidence of the existence in pre-Buddhist India of rites and beliefs—the latter chiefly of the kind called animistic—disowned for the most part by the Buddhists and only tolerated by the Brahmans. No elaborate explanation of this popular religion or of its relation to more intellectual and sacerdotal cults is necessary, for the same thing exists at the present day and the best commentary on the Sîla-vagga is Crooke's Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India.
In themselves such popular superstitions may seem despicable and repulsive (as the Buddha found them), but when they are numerous and vigorous, as in India, they have a real importance for they provide a matrix and nursery in which the beginnings of great religions may be reared. Sâktism and the worship of Râma and Krishna, together with many less conspicuous cults, all entered Brahmanism in this way. Whenever a popular cult grew important or whenever Brahmanic influence spread to a new district possessing such a cult, the popular cult was recognized and brahmanized. This policy can be abundantly illustrated for the last four or five centuries (for instance in Assam), and it was in operation two and a half millenniums ago or earlier. It explains the low and magical character of the residue of popular religion, every ceremony and deity of importance being put under Brahmanic patronage, and it also explains the sudden appearance of new deities. We can safely assert that in the time of the Buddha, and a fortiori in the time of the older Upanishads[250] and Brâhmaṇas, Krishna and Râma were not prominent as deities in Hindustan, but it may well be that they had a considerable position as heroes whose exploits were recited at popular festivals and that Krishna was growing into a god in other regions which have left no literature.
CHAPTER VII
THE JAINS
1
Before leaving pre-Buddhist India, it may be well to say something of the Jains. Many of their doctrines, especially their disregard not only of priests but of gods, which seems to us so strange in any system which can be called a religion, are closely analogous to Buddhism and from one point of view Jainism is part of the Buddhist movement. But more accurately it may be called an early specialized form of the general movement which culminated in Buddhism. Its founder, Mahâvîra, was an earlier contemporary of the Buddha and not a pupil or imitator[252]. Even had its independent appearance been later, we might still say that it represents an earlier stage of thought. Its kinship to the theories mentioned in the last chapter is clear. It does not indeed deny responsibility and free will, but its advocacy of extreme asceticism and death by starvation has a touch of the same extravagance and its list of elements in which physical substances and ideas are mixed together is curiously crude.
Jainism is atheistic, and this atheism is as a rule neither apologetic nor polemical but is accepted as a natural religious attitude. By atheism, of course, a denial of the existence of Devas is not meant; the Jains surpass, if possible, the exuberant fancy of the Brahmans and Buddhists in designing imaginary worlds and peopling them with angelic or diabolical inhabitants, but, as in Buddhism, these beings are like mankind subject to transmigration and decay and are not the masters, still less the creators, of the universe. There were two principal world theories in ancient India. One, which was systematized as the Vedânta, teaches in its extreme form that the soul and the universal spirit are identical and the external world an illusion. The other, systematized as the Sânkhya, is dualistic and teaches that primordial matter and separate individual souls are both of them uncreated and indestructible. Both lines of thought look for salvation in the liberation of the soul to be attained by the suppression of the passions and the acquisition of true knowledge.
Jainism belongs to the second of these classes. It teaches that the world is eternal, self-existent and composed of six constituent substances: souls, dharma, adharma, space, time, and particles of matter[253]. Dharma and adharma are defined by modern Jains as subtle substances analogous to space which make it possible for things to move or rest, but Jacobi is probably right in supposing that in primitive speculation the words had their natural meaning and denoted subtle fluids which cause merit and demerit. In any case the enumeration places in singular juxtaposition substances and activities, the material and the immaterial. The process of salvation and liberation is not distinguished from physical processes and we see how other sects may have drawn the conclusion, which apparently the Jains did not draw, that human action is necessitated and that there is no such thing as free will. For Jainism individual souls are free, separate existences, whose essence is pure intelligence. But they have a tendency towards action and passion and are misled by false beliefs. For this reason, in the existence which we know they are chained to bodies and are found not only in Devas and in human beings but in animals, plants and inanimate matter. The habitation of the soul depends on the merit or demerit which it acquires and merit and demerit have respectively greater or less influence during immensely long periods called Utsarpinî and Avasarpinî, ascending and descending, in which human stature and the duration of life increase or decrease by a regular law. Merit secures birth among the gods or good men. Sin sends the soul to baser births, even in inanimate substances. On this downward path, the intelligence is gradually dimmed till at last motion and consciousness are lost, which is not however regarded as equivalent to annihilation.
Another dogmatic exposition of the Jain creed is based on seven principles, called soul, non-soul, influx, imprisonment, exclusion, dissipation, release[254]. Karma, which in the ordinary language of Indian philosophy means deeds and their effect on the soul, is here regarded as a peculiarly subtle form of matter[255] which enters the soul and by this influx (or âsrava, a term well-known in Buddhism) defiles and weighs it down. As food is transformed into flesh, so the Karma forms a subtle body which invests the soul and prevents it from being wholly isolated from matter at death. The upward path and liberation of the soul are effected by stopping the entrance of Karma, that is by not performing actions which give occasion to the influx, and by expelling it. The most effective means to this end is self-mortification, which not only prevents the entrance of new Karma but annihilates what has accumulated.
Like most Indian sects, Jainism considers the world of transmigration as a bondage or journey which the wise long to terminate. But joyless as is its immediate outlook, its ultimate ideas are not pessimistic. Even in the body the soul can attain a beatific state of perfect knowledge[256] and above the highest heaven (where the greatest gods live in bliss for immense periods though ultimately subject to transmigration) is the paradise of blessed souls, freed from transmigration. They have no visible form but consist of life throughout, and enjoy happiness beyond compare. With a materialism characteristic of Jain theology, the treatise from which this account is taken[257] adds that the dimensions of a perfected soul are two-thirds of the height possessed in its last existence.
How is this paradise to be reached? By right faith, right knowledge and right conduct, called the three jewels, a phrase familiar to Buddhism. The right faith is complete confidence in Mahâvîra and his teaching. Right knowledge is correct theology as outlined above. Knowledge is of five degrees of which the highest is called Kevalam or omniscience. This sounds ambitious, but the special method of reasoning favoured by the Jains is the modest Syâdvâda[258] or doctrine of may-be, which holds that you can (1) affirm the existence of a thing from one point of view, (2) deny it from another, and (3) affirm both existence and non-existence with reference to it at different times. If (4) you should think of affirming existence and non-existence at the same time and from the same point of view, you must say that the thing cannot be spoken of. The essence of the doctrine, so far as one can disentangle it from scholastic terminology, seems just, for it amounts to this, that as to matters of experience it is impossible to formulate the whole and complete truth, and as to matters which transcend experience language is inadequate: also that Being is associated with production, continuation and destruction. This doctrine is called anekânta-vâda, meaning that Being is not one and absolute as the Upanishads assert: matter is permanent, but changes its shape, and its other accidents. Thus in many points the Jains adopt the common sense and primâ facie point of view. But the doctrines of metempsychosis and Karma are also admitted as obvious propositions, and though the fortunes and struggles of the embodied soul are described in materialistic terms, happiness is never placed in material well-being but in liberation from the material universe.
We cannot be sure that the existing Jain scriptures present these doctrines in their original form, but the full acceptance of metempsychosis, the animistic belief that plants, particles of earth and water have souls and the materialistic phraseology (from which the widely different speculations of the Upanishads are by no means free) agree with what we know of Indian thought about 550 B.C. Jainism like Buddhism ignores the efficacy of ceremonies and the powers of priests, but it bears even fewer signs than Buddhism of being in its origin a protestant or hostile movement. The intellectual atmosphere seems other than that of the Upanishads, but it is very nearly that of the Sânkhya philosophy, which also recognizes an infinity of individual souls radically distinct from matter and capable of attaining bliss only by isolation from matter. Of the origin of that important school we know nothing, but it differs from Jainism chiefly in the greater elaboration of its psychological and evolutionary theories and in the elimination of some materialistic ideas. Possibly the same region and climate of opinion gave birth to two doctrines, one simple and practical, inasmuch as it found its principal expression in a religious order, the other more intellectual and scholastic and, at least in the form in which we read it, later[259].
Right conduct is based on the five vows taken by every Jain ascetic, (1) not to kill, (2) not to speak untruth, (3) to take nothing that is not given, (4) to observe chastity, (5) to renounce all pleasure in external objects. These vows receive an extensive and strict interpretation by means of five explanatory clauses applicable to each and to be construed with reference to deed, word, and thought, to acting, commanding and consenting. Thus the vow not to kill forbids not only the destruction of the smallest insect but also all speech or thought which could bring about a quarrel, and the doing, causing or permitting of any action which could even inadvertently injure living beings, such as carelessness in walking. Naturally such rules can be kept only by an ascetic, and in addition to them asceticism is expressly enjoined. It is either internal or external. The former takes such forms as repentance, humility, meditation and the suppression of all desires: the latter comprises various forms of self-denial, culminating in death by starvation. This form of religious suicide is prescribed for those who have undergone twelve years' penance and are ripe for Nirvana[260] but it is wrong if adopted as a means of shortening austerities. Numerous inscriptions record such deaths and the head-teachers of the Digambaras are said still to leave the world in this way.
Important but not peculiar to Jainism is the doctrine of the periodical appearance of great teachers who from time to time restore the true faith[261]. The same idea meets us in the fourteen Manus, the incarnations of Vishnu, and the series of Buddhas who preceded Gotama. The Jain saints are sometimes designated as Buddha, Kevalin, Siddha, Tathâgata and Arhat (all Buddhist titles) but their special appellation is Jina or conqueror which is, however, also used by Buddhists[262]. It was clearly a common notion in India that great teachers appear at regular intervals and that one might reasonably be expected in the sixth century B.C. The Jains gave preference or prominence to the titles Jina or Tîrthankara: the Buddhists to Buddha or Tathâgata.
2
According to the Jain scriptures all Jinas are born in the warrior caste, never among Brahmans. The first called Rishabha, who was born an almost inexpressibly[263] long time ago and lived 8,400,000 years, was the son of a king of Ayodhyâ. But as ages elapsed, the lives of his successors and the intervals which separated them became shorter. Parśva, the twenty-third Jina, must have some historical basis[264]. We are told that he lived 250 years before Mahâvîra, that his followers still existed in the time of the latter: that he permitted the use of clothes and taught that four and not five vows were necessary[265]. Both Jain and Buddhist scriptures support the idea that Mahâvîra was a reviver and reformer rather than an originator. The former do not emphasize the novelty of his revelation and the latter treat Jainism as a well-known form of error without indicating that it was either new or attributable to one individual.
Mahâvîra, or the great hero, is the common designation of the twenty-fourth Jina but his personal name was Vardhamâna. He was a contemporary of the Buddha but somewhat older and belonged to a Kshatriya clan, variously called Jñâta, Ñâta, or Ñâya. His parents lived in a suburb of Vaiśâlî and were followers of Parśva. When he was in his thirty-first year they decided to die by voluntary starvation and after their death he renounced the world and started to wander naked in western Bengal, enduring some persecution as well as self-inflicted penances. After thirteen years of this life, he believed that he had attained enlightenment and appeared as the Jina, the head of a religious order called Nirgaṇṭhas (or Nigaṇṭhas). This word, which means unfettered or free from bonds, is the name by which the Jains are generally known in Buddhist literature and it occurs in their own scriptures, though it gradually fell out of use. Possibly it was the designation of an order claiming to have been founded by Parśva and accepted by Mahâvîra.
The meagre accounts of his life relate that he continued to travel for nearly thirty years and had eleven principal disciples. He apparently influenced much the same region as the Buddha and came in contact with the same personalities, such as kings Bimbisâra and Ajâtasattu. He had relations with Makkhali Gosâla and his disciples disputed with the Buddhists[266] but it does not appear that he himself ever met Gotama. He died at the age of seventy-two at Pâvâ near Râjagaha. Only one of his principal disciples, Sudharman, survived him and a schism broke out immediately after his death. There had already been one in the fifteenth year of his teaching brought about by his son-in-law.
3
We have no information about the differences on which these schisms turned, but Jainism is still split into two sects which, though following in most respects identical doctrines and customs, refuse to intermarry or eat together. Their sacred literature is not the same and the evidence of inscriptions indicates that they were distinct at the beginning of the Christian era and perhaps much earlier.
The Digambara sect, or those who are clothed in air, maintain that absolute nudity is a necessary condition of saintship: the other division or Śvetâmbaras, those who are dressed in white, admit that Mahâvîra went about naked, but hold that the use of clothes does not impede the highest sanctity, and also that such sanctity can be attained by women, which the Digambaras deny. Nudity as a part of asceticism was practised by several sects in the time of Mahâvîra[267] but it was also reprobated by others (including all Buddhists) who felt it to be barbarous and unedifying. It is therefore probable that both Digambaras and Śvetâmbaras existed in the infancy of Jainism, and the latter may represent the older sect reformed or exaggerated by Mahâvîra. Thus we are told[268] that "the law taught by Vardhamâna forbids clothes but that of the great sage Parśva allows an under and an upper garment." But it was not until considerably later that the schism was completed by the constitution of two different canons[269]. At the present day most Digambaras wear the ordinary costume of their district and only the higher ascetics attempt to observe the rule of nudity. When they go about they wrap themselves in a large cloth, but lay it aside when eating. The Digambaras are divided into four principal sects and the Śvetâmbaras into no less than eighty-four, which are said to date from the tenth century A.D.
Apart from these divisions, all Jain communities are differentiated into laymen and members of the order or Yatis, literally strivers. It is recognized that laymen cannot observe the five vows. Killing, lying, and stealing are forbidden to them only in their obvious and gross forms: chastity is replaced by conjugal fidelity and self-denial by the prohibition of covetousness. They can also acquire merit by observing seven other miscellaneous vows (whence we hear of the twelvefold law) comprising rules as to residence, trade, etc. Agriculture is forbidden since it involves tearing up the ground and the death of insects.
Mahâvîra was succeeded by a long line of teachers sometimes called Patriarchs and it would seem that their names have been correctly preserved though the accounts of their doings are meagre. Various notices in Buddhist literature confirm the idea that the Jains were active in the districts corresponding to Oudh, Tirhut and Bihar in the period following Mahâvîra's death, and we hear of them in Ceylon before our era. Further historical evidence is afforded by inscriptions[270]. The earliest in which the Jains are mentioned are the edicts of Asoka. He directed the officials called "superintendents of religion" to concern themselves with the Niganṭḥas[271]: and when [272] he describes how he has provided medicine, useful plants and wells for both men and animals, we are reminded of the hospitals for animals which are still maintained by the Jains. According to Jain tradition (which however has not yet been verified by other evidence) Samprati, the grandson of Asoka, was a devout patron of the faith. More certain is the patronage accorded to it by King Khâravela of Orissa about 157 B.C. which is attested by inscriptions. Many dedicatory inscriptions prove that the Jains were a flourishing community at Muttra in the reigns of Kanishka, Huvishka and Vasudeva and one inscription from the same locality seems as old as 150 B.C. We learn from these records that the sect comprised a great number of schools and subdivisions. We need not suppose that the different teachers were necessarily hostile to one another but their existence testifies to an activity and freedom of interpretation which have left traces in the multitude of modern subsects.
Jainism also spread in the south of India and before our era it had a strong hold in Tamil lands, but our knowledge of its early progress is defective. According to Jain tradition there was a severe famine in northern India about 200 years after Mahâvîra's death and the patriarch Bhadrabâhu led a band of the faithful to the south[273]. In the seventh century A.D. we know from various records of the reign of Harsha and from the Chinese pilgrim Hsüan Chuang that it was nourishing in Vaiśâlî and Bengal and also as far south as Conjeevaram. It also made considerable progress in the southern Maratha country under the Câlukya dynasty of Vatapi, in the modern district of Bijapur (500-750) and under the Râshṭrakûta sovereigns of the Deccan. Amoghavarsha of this line (815-877) patronized the Digambaras and in his old age abdicated and became an ascetic. The names of notable Digambara leaders like Jinasena and Guṇabhadra dating from this period are preserved and Jainism must in some districts have become the dominant religion. Bijjala who usurped the Câlukya throne (1156-1167) was a Jain and the Hoysala kings of Mysore, though themselves Vaishnavas, protected the religion. Inscriptions[274] appear to attest the presence of Jainism at Girnar in the first century A.D. and subsequently Gujarat became a model Jain state after the conversion of King Kumarapala about 1160.
Such success naturally incurred the enmity of the Brahmans and there is more evidence of systematic persecution directed against the Jains than against the Buddhists. The Cola kings who ruled in the south-east of the Madras Presidency were jealous worshippers of Siva and the Jains suffered severely at their hands in the eleventh century and also under the Pândya kings of the extreme south. King Sundara of the latter dynasty is said to have impaled 8000 of them and pictures on the walls of the great temple at Madura represent their tortures. A little later (1174) Ajayadeva, a Saiva king of Gujarat, is said to have raged against them with equal fury. The rise of the Lingâyats in the Deccan must also have had an unfavourable effect on their numbers. But in the fourteenth century greater tolerance prevailed, perhaps in consequence of the common danger from Islam. Inscriptions found at Sravana Belgola and other places[275] narrate an interesting event which occurred in 1368. The Jains appealed to the king of Vijayanagar for protection from persecution and he effected a public reconciliation between them and the Vaishnavas, holding the hands of both leaders in his own and declaring that equal protection would be given to both sects. Another inscription records an amicable agreement regulating the worship of a lingam in a Jain temple at Halebid. Many others, chiefly recording grants of land, testify to the prosperity of Jainism in the Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagar and in the region of Mt Abu in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries[276]. The great Emperor Akbar himself came under the influence of Jainism and received instruction from three Jain teachers from 1578 to 1597.
Persecution and still more the steady pressure and absorptive power of Hinduism have reduced the proportions of the sect, and the last census estimated it at one million and a third. It is probable, however, that many Jains returned themselves as Hindus, and that their numbers are really greater. More than two-fifths of them are found in Bombay, Rajputana, and Central India. Elsewhere they are generally distributed but only in small numbers. They observe caste, at least in some districts, and generally belong to the Baniyas. They include many wealthy merchants who expend large sums on the construction and maintenance of temples, houses for wandering ascetics and homes for cattle. Their respect and care for animal life are remarkable. Wherever Jains gain influence beasts are not slaughtered or sacrificed, and when old or injured are often kept in hospitals or asylums, as, for instance, at Ahmadabad[277]. Their ascetics take stringent precautions to avoid killing the smallest creature: they strain their drinking water, sweep the ground before them with a broom as they walk and wear a veil over their mouths. Even in the shops of the laity lamps are carefully screened to prevent insects from burning themselves.
The principal divisions are the Digambara and Śvetâmbara as above described and an offshoot of the latter called Dhundia[278] who refuse to use images in worship and are remarkable even among Jains for their aversion to taking life. In Central India the Digambaras are about half the total number; in Baroda and Bombay the Śvetâmbaras are stronger. In Central India the Jains are said to be sharply distinguished from Hindus but in other parts they intermarry with Vaishnavas and while respecting their own ascetics as religious teachers, employ the services of Brahmans in their ceremonies.
4
The Jains have a copious and in part ancient literature. The oldest works are found in the canon (or Siddhânta) of the Śvetâmbaras, which is not accepted by the Digambaras. In this canon the highest rank is given to eleven works[279] called Angas or limbs of the law but it also comprises many other esteemed treatises such as the Kalpasûtra ascribed to Bhadrabâhu. Fourteen older books called Puvvas (Sk. Pûrvas) and now lost are said to have together formed a twelfth anga. The language of the canon is a variety of Prakrit[280], fairly ancient though more modern than Pali, and remarkable for its habit of omitting or softening consonants coming between two vowels, e.g. sûyam for sûtram, loo for loko[281]. We cannot, however, conclude that it is the language in which the books were composed, for it is probable that the early Jains, rejecting Brahmanical notions of a revealed text, handed down their religious teaching in the vernacular and allowed its grammar and phonetics to follow the changes brought about by time. According to a tradition which probably contains elements of truth the first collection of sacred works was made about 200 years after Mahâvîra's death by a council which sat at Pataliputra. Just about the same time came the famine already mentioned and many Jains migrated to the south. When they returned they found that their co-religionists had abandoned the obligation of nakedness and they consequently refused to recognize their sacred books. The Śvetâmbara canon was subsequently revised and written down by a council held at Valabhi in Gujarat in the middle of the fifth century A.D. This is the edition which is still extant. The canon of the Digambaras, which is less well known, is said to be chiefly in Sanskrit and according to tradition was codified by Pushpadanta in the second century A.D. but appears to be really posterior to the Śvetâmbara scriptures[282]. It is divided into four sections called Vedas and treating respectively of history, cosmology, philosophy and rules of life[283].
Though the books of the Jain canon contain ancient matter, yet they seem, as compositions, considerably later than the older parts of the Buddhist Tripitaka. They do not claim to record recent events and teaching but are attempts at synthesis which assume that Jainism is well known and respected. In style they offer some resemblance to the Pitakas: there is the same inordinate love of repetition and in the more emotional passages great similarity of tone and metaphor[284].
Besides the two canons, the Jains have a considerable literature consisting both of commentaries and secular works. The most eminent of their authors is Hemacandra, born in 1088, who though a monk was an ornament of the court and rendered an important service to his sect by converting Kumârapâla, King of Gujarat. He composed numerous and valuable works on grammar, lexicography, poetics and ecclesiastical biography. Such subjects were congenial to the later Jain writers and they not only cultivated both Sanskrit and Prakrit but also had a vivifying effect on the vernaculars of southern India. Kanarese, Tamil, and Telugu in their literary form owe much to the labours of Jain monks, and the Jain works composed in these languages, such as the Jîvakacintâmaṇi in Tamil, if not of world-wide importance, at least greatly influenced Dravidian civilization.
Though the Jains thus occupy an honourable, and even distinguished place in the history of letters it must be confessed that it is hard to praise their older religious books. This literature is of considerable scientific interest for it contains many data about ancient India as yet unsifted but it is tedious in style and rarely elevated in sentiment. It has an arid extravagance, which merely piles one above the other interminable lists of names and computations of immensity in time and space. Even more than in the Buddhist suttas there is a tendency to repetition which offends our sense of proportion and though the main idea, to free the soul from the trammels of passion and matter, is not inferior to any of the religious themes of India, the treatment is not adequate to the subject and the counsels of perfection are smothered under a mass of minute precepts about the most unsavoury details of life and culminate in the recommendation of death by voluntary starvation.
5
But observation of Jainism as it exists to-day produces a quite different impression. The Jains are well-to-do, industrious and practical: their schools and religious establishments are well ordered: their temples have a beauty, cleanliness, and cheerfulness unusual in India and due to the large use made of white marble and brilliant colours. The tenderness for animal life may degenerate into superstition (though surely it is a fault on the right side) and some observances of the ascetics (such as pulling out the hair instead of shaving the head) are severe, but as a community the Jains lead sane and serious lives, hardly practising and certainly not parading the extravagances of self-torture which they theoretically commend. Mahâvîra is said to have taught that place, time and occasion should be taken into consideration and his successors adapted their precepts to the age in which they lived. Such monks as I have met[285] maintained that extreme forms of tapas were good for the nerves of ancient saints but not for the weaker natures of to-day. But in avoiding rigorous severity, they have not fallen into sloth or luxury.
The beauty of Jainism finds its best expression in architecture. This reached its zenith both in style and quantity during the eleventh and twelfth centuries which accords with what we know of the growth of the sect. After this period the Mohammedan invasions were unfavourable to all forms of Hindu architecture. But the taste for building remained and somewhat later pious Jains again began to construct large edifices which are generally less degenerate than modern Hindu temples, though they often show traces of Mohammedan influence. Hathi Singh's temple at Ahmadabad completed in 1848 is a fine example of this modern style.
There is a considerable difference between Jain and Buddhist architecture both in intention and effect. Jain monks did not live together in large communities and there was no worship of relics. Hence the vihâra and the stûpa—the two principal types of Buddhist buildings—are both absent. Yet there is some resemblance between Jain temples (for instance those at Palitâna) and the larger Burmese sanctuaries, such as the Shwe Dagon Pagoda. It is partly due to the same conviction, namely that the most meritorious work which a layman can perform is to multiply shrines and images. In both localities the general plan is similar. On the top of a hill or mound is a central building round which are grouped a multitude of other shrines. The repetition of chapels and images is very remarkable: in Burma they all represent Gotama, in Jain temples the figures of Tîrthankaras are nominally different personalities but so alike in presentment that the laity rarely know them apart. In both styles of art white and jewelled images are common as well as groups of four sitting figures set back to back and facing the four quarters[286]: in both we meet with veritable cities of temples, on the hill tops of Gujarat and in the plain of Pagan on the banks of the Irawaddy. As some features of Burmese art are undoubtedly borrowed from India[287], the above characteristics may be due to imitation of Jain methods. It might be argued that the architectural style of late Indian Buddhism survives among the Jains but there is no proof that the multiplication of temples and images was a feature of this style. But in some points it is clear that the Jains have followed the artistic conventions of the Buddhists. Thus Pârśvanâtha is sheltered by a cobra's hood, like Gotama, and though the Bo-tree plays no part in the legend of the Tîrthankaras, they are represented as sitting under such trees and a living tree is venerated at Palitâna.
As single edifices illustrating the beauty of Jain art both in grace of design and patient elaboration of workmanship may be mentioned the Towers of Fame and Victory at Chitore, and the temples of Mt Abu. Some differences of style are visible in north and south India. In the former the essential features are a shrine with a portico attached and surmounted by a conical tower, the whole placed in a quadrangular court round which are a series of cells or chapels containing images seated on thrones. These are the Tîrthankaras, almost exactly alike and of white marble, though some of the later saints are represented as black. The Śvetâmbaras represent their Tîrthankaras as clothed but in the temples of the Digambaras the images are naked.
In the south are found religious monuments of two kinds known as Bastis and Bettus. The Bastis consist of pillared vestibules leading to a shrine over which rises a dome constructed in three or four stages. The Bettus are not temples in the ordinary sense but courtyards surrounding gigantic images of a saint named Gommateśvara who is said to have been the son of the first Tîrthankara[288]. The largest of these colossi is at Sravana Belgola. It is seventy feet in height and carved out of a mass of granite standing on the top of a hill and represents a sage so sunk in meditation that anthills and creepers have grown round his feet without breaking his trance. An inscription states that it was erected about 983 A.D. by the minister of a king of the Ganga dynasty[289].
But even more remarkable than these gigantic statues are the collections of temples found on several eminences, such as Girnar and Satrunjaya[290], mountain masses which rise abruptly to a height of three or four thousand feet out of level plains. On the summit of Satrunjaya are innumerable shrines, arranged in marble courts or along well-paved streets. In each enclosure is a central temple surrounded by others at the sides, and all are dominated by one which in the proportions of its spire and courtyard surpasses the rest. Only a few Yatis are allowed to pass the night in the sacred precincts and it is a strange experience to enter the gates at dawn and wander through the interminable succession of white marble courts tenanted only by flocks of sacred pigeons. On every side sculptured chapels gorgeous in gold and colour stand silent and open: within are saints sitting grave and passionless behind the lights that burn on their altars. The multitude of calm stone faces, the strange silence and emptiness, unaccompanied by any sign of neglect or decay, the bewildering repetition of shrines and deities in this aerial castle, suggest nothing built with human purpose but some petrified spirit world.
Soon after dawn a string of devotees daily ascends the hill. Most are laymen, but there is a considerable sprinkling of ascetics, especially nuns. After joining the order both sexes wear yellowish white robes and carry long sticks. They spend much of their time in visiting holy places and usually do not stop at one rest house for more than two months. The worship performed in the temples consists of simple offerings of flowers, incense and lights made with little ceremony. Pilgrims go their rounds in small bands and kneeling together before the images sing the praises of the Jinas.