The Religions of India Part 30

[Footnote 34: There is another funeral hymn, X. 16, in which the Fire is invoked to burn the dead, and bear him to the fathers; his corporeal parts being distributed 'eye to the sun, breath to the wind,' etc.]

[Footnote 35: See below.]

[Footnote 36: Compare Weber, _Streifen_, I. 66; The king's first wife lies with a dead victim, and is bid to come back again to life. Levirate marriage is known to all the codes, but it is reprehended by the same code that enjoins it. (M.

ix. 65.)]

[Footnote 37: The ordeal is called _divyam_ (_pram[=a][n.]am_) 'Gottesurtheil.' This means of information is employed especially in a disputed debt and deposit, and according to the formal code is to be applied only in the absence of witnesses. The code also restricts the use of fire, water, and poison to the slaves (Y[=a]j.

ii. 98).]

[Footnote 38: Kaegi. _Alter und Herkunft des Germanischen Gottesurtheils_, p. 50. We call especial attention to the fact that the most striking coincidences in details of practice are not early either in India or Germany.]

[Footnote 39: Schlagintweit, _Die Gattesurtheile der Indier_, p. 24.]

[Footnote 40: This is the earliest formula. Later law-books describe the length and strength of the bow, and some even give the measure of distance to which the arrow must be shot. Two runners, one to go and one to return, are sometimes allowed. There is another water-ordeal "for religious men." The accused is to drink consecrated water.

If in fourteen (or more or less) days no calamity happen to him he will be innocent. The same test is made in the case of the oath and of poison (below).]

[Footnote 41: In the case of witnesses Manu gives seven days as the limit. When one adopts the oath as an ordeal the misfortune of the guilty is supposed to come 'quickly.' As an ordeal this is not found in the later law. It is one of the Greek tests (_loc. cit_.). When swearing the Hindu holds water or holy-gra.s.s.]

[Footnote 42: AV. ii. 12 is not a certain case of this, but it is at least Brahmanic. The carrying of the axe is alluded to in the Ch[=a]ndogya Upanishad (Schlagintweit, _Die Gattesurtheile der Indier_, p. 6).]

[Footnote 43: Y[=a]jnavalkya (_loc. cit_.) restricts this test to women, children, priests, the old, blind, lame, and sick. On _ph[=a]la_ for _agni, ib._ ii. 99, see ZDMG. ix.

677.]

[Footnote 44: Schlagintweit, _loc. cit_. p. 26 (Hiouen Thsang).]

CHAPTER XII.

JAINISM.[1]

One cannot read the Upanishads without feeling that he is already facing an intellectual revolt. Not only in the later tracts, which are inspired with devotion to a supreme and universal Lord, but even in the oldest of these works the atmosphere, as compared with that of the earlier Brahmanic period, is essentially different. The close and stifling air of ritualism has been charged with an electrical current of thought that must soon produce a storm.

That storm reached a head in Buddhism, but its premonitory signs appear in the Upanishads, and its first outbreak preceded the advent of Gautama. Were it possible to draw a line of demarcation between the Upanishads that come before and after Buddhism, it would be historically more correct to review the two great schisms, Jainism and Buddhism, before referring to the sectarian Upanishads. For these latter in their present form are posterior to the rise of the two great heresies. But, since such a division is practically uncertain in its application, we have thought it better in our sketch of the Upanishads and legal literature to follow to the end the course of that agitated thought, which, starting with the great identification of _jiva_, the individual spirit, and _[=a]tm[=a]_, the world-spirit, the All, continues till it loses itself in a multiplication of sectarian dogmas, where the All becomes the G.o.d that has been elected by one communion of devotees.[2]

The external characteristics of Upanishad thought are those of a religion that has replaced formal acts by formal introspection. The Yogin devotee, who by mystic communion desires absorption into the world-spirit, replaces the Sanny[=a]sin and Yati ascetics, who would accomplish the same end by renunciation and severe self-mortification.

This is a fresh figure on the stage of thought, where before were mad Munis, beggars, and miracle-mongers. On this stage stands beside the ascetic the theoretical theosophist who has succeeded in identifying himself, soberly, not in frenzy, with G.o.d.[3] What were the practical results of this teaching has been indicated in part already. The futility of the stereotyped religious offices was recognized. But these offices could not be discarded by the orthodox. With the lame and illogical excuse that they were useful as discipline, though unessential in reality, they were retained by the Brahman priest. Not so by the Jain; still less so by the Buddhist.

In the era in which arose the public revolt against the dogmatic teaching of the Brahman there were more sects than one that have now pa.s.sed away forgotten. The eastern part of India, to which appertain the later part of the catapatha Br[=a]hmana and the schismatic heresies, was full of religious and philosophical controversy. The great heretics were not innovators in heresy. The Brahmans permitted, encouraged, and shared in theoretical controversy. There was nothing in the tenets of Jainism or of Buddhism that from a philosophical point of view need have caused a rupture with the Brahmans.

But the heresies, nevertheless, do not represent the priestly caste, so much as the caste most apt to rival and to disregard the claim of the Brahman, viz., the warrior-caste. They were supported by kings, who gladly stood against priests. To a great extent both Jainism and Buddhism owed their success (amid other rival heresies with no less claim to good protestantism) to the politics of the day. The kings of the East were impatient of the Western church; they were pleased to throw it over. The leaders in the 'reformation' were the younger sons of n.o.ble blood. The church received many of these younger sons as priests. Both Buddha and Mah[=a]v[=i]ra were, in fact, revolting adherents of the Brahmanic faith, but they were princes and had royalty to back them.

Nor in the Brahmanhood of Benares was Brahmanhood at its strongest.

The seat of the Vedic cult lay to the westward, where it arose, in the 'holy land,' which received the Vedic Aryans after they had crossed out of the Punj[=a]b. With the eastward course of conquest the character of the people and the very orthodoxy of the priests were relaxed. The country that gave rise to the first heresies was one not consecrated to the ancient rites. Very slowly had these rites marched thither, and they were, so to speak, far from their religious base of supplies. The West was more conservative than the East. It was the home of the rites it favored. The East was but a foster-father. New tribes, new land, new growth, socially and intellectually,--all these contributed in the new seat of Brahmanhood to weaken the hold of the priests upon their speculative and now recalcitrant laity. So before Buddha there were heretics and even Buddhas, for the t.i.tle was Buddha's only by adoption. But of most of these earlier sects one knows little. Three or four names of reformers have been handed down; half a dozen opponents or rivals of Buddha existed and vied with him. Most important of these, both on account of his probable priority and because of the lasting character of his school, was the founder or reformer of Jainism, Mah[=a]v[=i]ra Jn[=a]triputra,[4] who with his eleven chief disciples may be regarded as the first open seceders from Brahmanism, unless one a.s.sign the same date to the revolt of Buddha. The two schisms have so much in common, especially in outward features, that for long it was thought that Jainism was a sub-sect of Buddhism. In their legends, in the localities in which they flourished, and in many minutiae of observances they are alike.

Nevertheless, their differences are as great as the resemblance between them, and what Jainism at first appeared to have got of Buddhism seems now to be rather the common loan made by each sect from Brahmanism. It is safest, perhaps, to rest in the a.s.surance that the two heresies were contemporaries of the sixth century B.C, and leave unanswered the question which Master preceded the other, though we incline to the opinion that the founder of Jainism, be he Mah[=a]v[=i]ra or his own reputed master, P[=a]rcvan[=a]tha, had founded his sect before Gautama became Buddha. But there is one good reason for treating of Jainism before Buddhism,[5] and that is, that the former represents a theological mean between Brahmanism and Buddhism.

Mah[=a]v[=i]ra, the reputed founder of his sect, was, like Buddha and perhaps his other rivals, of aristocratic birth. His father is called king, but he was probably hereditary chief of a district incorporated as a suburb of the capital city of Videha, while by marriage he was related to the king of Videha, and to the ruling house of M[=a]gadha. His family name was Jn[=a]triputra, or, in his own Prakrit (Ardham[=a]gadh[=i]) dialect, N[=a]taputta; but by his sect he was ent.i.tled the Great Hero, Mah[=a]v[=i]ra; the Conqueror, Jina; the Great One, Vardham[=a]na (Vardahmana in the original), etc. His sect was that of the Nirgranthas (n.i.g.g.anthas), _i.e_., 'without bonds,'

perhaps the oldest name of the whole body. Later there are found no less than seven sub-sects, to which come as eighth the Digambaras, in contradistinction to all the seven cvet[=a]mbara sects. These two names represent the two present bodies of the church, one body being the cvet[=a]mbaras, or 'white-attire' faction, who are in the north and west; the other, the Digambaras, or 'sky-attire,' _i.e_., naked devotees of the south. The latter split off from the main body about two hundred years after Mah[=a]v[=i]ra's death; as has been thought by some, because the cvet[=a]mbaras refused to follow the Digambaras in insisting upon nakedness as the rule for ascetics.[6] The earlier writings show that nakedness was recommended, but was not compulsory.[7] Other designations of the main sects, as of the sub-sects, are found. Thus, from the practice of pulling out the hairs of their body, the Jains were derisively termed Luncitakecas, or 'hair-pluckers.' The naked devotees of this school are probably the gymnosophists of the Greek historians, although this general term may have been used in describing other sects, as the practice of dispensing with attire is common even to-day with many Hindu devotees.[8]

An account of the Jain absurdities in the way of speculation would indeed give some idea of their intellectual frailty, but, as in the case of the Buddhists, such an account has but little to do with their religion. It will suffice to state that the 'ages' of the Brahmans from whom Jain and Buddhist derived their general conceptions of the ages, are here reckoned quite differently; and that the first Jina of the long series of pre-historic prophets lived more than eight million years and was five hundred bow-lengths in height. Monks and laymen now appear at large in India, a division which originated neither with Jain nor Buddhist,[9] though these orders are more clearly divided among the heretics, from whom, again, was borrowed by the Hindu sects, the monastic inst.i.tution, in the ninth century (A.D.), in all the older heretical completeness. Although atheistic the Jain wors.h.i.+pped the Teacher, and paid some regard to the Brahmanical divinities, just as he wors.h.i.+ps the Hindu G.o.ds to-day, for the atheistical systems admitted G.o.ds as demi-G.o.ds or dummy G.o.ds, and in point of fact became very superst.i.tious. Yet are both founder-wors.h.i.+p and superst.i.tion rather the growth of later generations than the original practice. The atheism of the Jain means denial of a divine creative Spirit.[10]

Though at times in conflict with the Brahmans the Jains never departed from India as did the Buddhists, and even Brahmanic priests in some parts of India serve today in Jain temples.

In metaphysics as in religion the Jain differs radically from the Buddhist. He believes in a dualism not unlike that of the S[=a]nkhyas, whereas Buddhistic philosophy has no close connection with this Brahmanic system. To the Jain eternal matter stands opposed to eternal spirits, for (opposed to pantheism) every material ent.i.ty (even water) has its own individual spirit. The Jain's Nirv[=a]na, as Barth has said, is escape from the body, not escape from existence.[11] Like the Buddhist the Jain believes in reincarnation, eight births, after one has started on the right road, being necessary to the completion of perfection. Both sects, with the Brahmans, insist on the non-injury doctrine, but in this regard the Jain exceeds his Brahmanical teacher's practice. Both heretical sects claim that their reputed founders were the last of twenty-four or twenty-five prophets who preceded the real founder, each successively having become less monstrous (more human) in form.

The Jain literature left to us is quite large[12] and enough has been published already to make it necessary to revise the old belief in regard to the relation between Jainism and Buddhism.

We have said that Jainism stands nearer to Brahmanism (with which, however, it frequently had quarrels) than does Buddhism.[13] The most striking outward sign of this is the weight laid on asceticism, which is common to Brahmanism and Jainism but is repudiated by Buddhism.

Twelve years of asceticism are necessary to salvation, as thinks the Jain, and this self-mortification is of the most stringent sort. But it is not in their different conception of a Nirv[=a]na release rather than of annihilation, nor in the S[=a]nkhya-like[14] duality they affect, nor yet in the prominence given to self-mortification that the Jains differ most from the Buddhists. The contrast will appear more clearly when we come to deal with the latter sect. At present we take up the Jain doctrine for itself.

The 'three gems' which, according to the Jains,[15] result in the spirit's attainment of deliverance are knowledge, faith, and virtue, or literally 'right knowledge, right intuition, and right practices.'

Right knowledge is a true knowledge of the relation of spirit and not-spirit (the world consists of two cla.s.ses, spirit and non-spirit), the latter being immortal like the former. Right intuition is absolute faith in the word of the Master and the declarations of the [=A]gamas, or sacred texts. Right practices or virtue consists, according to the Yogac[=a]stra, in the correct fivefold conduct of one that has knowledge and faith: (1) Non-injury, (2) kindness and speaking which is true (in so far as the truth is pleasant to the hearer),[16] (3) honorable conduct, typified by 'not stealing,' (4) chast.i.ty in word, thought, and deed, (5) renunciation of earthly interests.

The doctrine of non-injury found but modified approval among the Brahmans. They limited its application in the case of sacrifice, and for this reason were bitterly taunted by the Jains as 'murderers.' "Viler than unbelievers," says the Yogac[=a]stra, quoting a law of Manu to the effect that animals may be slain for sacrifice, "all those cruel ones who make the law that teaches killing."[17] For this reason the Jain is far more particular in his respect for life than is the Buddhist. Lest animate things, even plants and animalculae, be destroyed, he sweeps the ground before him as he goes, walks veiled lest he inhale a living organism, strains water, and rejects not only meat but even honey, together with various fruits that are supposed to contain worms; not because of his distaste for worms but because of his regard for life. Other arguments which, logically, should not be allowed to influence him are admitted, however, in order to terrify the hearer. Thus the first argument against the use of honey is that it destroys life; then follows the argument that honey is 'spit out by bees' and therefore it is nasty.[18]

The Jain differs from the Buddhist still more in ascetic practices. He is a forerunner, in fact, of the horrible modern devotee whose practices we shall describe below. The older view of seven h.e.l.ls in opposition to the legal Brahmanic number of thrice seven is found (as it is in the M[=a]rkandeya Pur[=a]na), but whether this be the rule we cannot say.[19] It is interesting to see that h.e.l.l is prescribed with metempsychosis exactly as it is among the Brahmans.[20] Reincarnation onearth and punishment in h.e.l.ls between reincarnation seems to be the usual belief. The salvation which is attained by the practice of knowledge, faith, and five-fold virtue, is not immediate, but it will come after successive reincarnations; and this salvation is the freeing of the eternal spirit from the bonds of eternal matter; in other words, it is much more like the 'release' of the Brahman than it is like the Buddhistic Nirv[=a]na, though, of course, there is no 'absorption,' each spirit remaining single. In the order of the Ratnatraya or 'three gems' cankara appears to lay the greatest weight on faith, but in Hemacandra's schedule knowledge[21] holds the first place. This is part of that Yoga, asceticism, which is the most important element in attaining salvation.[22]

Another division of right practices is cited by the Yogac[=a]stra (I.

33 ff.): Some saints say that virtue is divided into five kinds of care and three kinds of control, to wit, proper care in walking, talking, begging for food, sitting, and performing natural functions of the body--these const.i.tute the five kinds of care, and the kinds of control are those of thought, speech, and act. This teaching it is stated, is for the monks. The practice of the laity is to accord with the custom of their country.

The chief general rules for the laity consist in vows of obedience to the true G.o.d, to the law, and to the (present) Teacher; which are somewhat like the vows of the Buddhist. G.o.d here is the Arhat, the 'venerable' founder of the sect. The laic has also five lesser vows: not to kill, not to lie, not to steal, not to commit adultery or fornication, to be content with little.

According to the c[=a]stra already cited the laic must rise early in the morning, wors.h.i.+p the G.o.d's idol at home, go to the temple and circ.u.mambulate the Jina idol three times, strewing flowers, and singing hymnsand then read the Praty[=a]khy[=a]na (an old P[=u]rva, gospel).[23] Further rules of prayer and practice guide him through his day. And by following this rule he expects to obtain spiritual 'freedom' hereafter; but for his life on earth he is "without praise or blame for this world or the next, for life or for death, having meditation as his one pure wife" (iii. 150). He will become a G.o.d in heaven, be reborn again on earth, and so, after eight successive existences (the Buddhistic number), at last obtain salvation, release (from bodies) for his eternal soul (153).

As in the Upanishads, the G.o.ds, like men, are a part of the system of the universe. The wise man goes to them (becomes a G.o.d) only to return to earth again. All systems thus unite h.e.l.l and heaven with the _karma_ doctrine. But in this Jain work, as in so many of the orthodox writings, the weight is laid more on h.e.l.l as a punishment than on rebirth. Probably the first Jains did not acknowledge G.o.ds at all, for it is an early rule with them not to say 'G.o.d rains,' or use any such expression, but to say 'the cloud rains'; and in other ways they avoid to employ a terminology which admits even implicitly the existence of divinities. Yet do they use a G.o.d not infrequently as an agent of glorification of Mah[=a]v[=i]ra, saying in later writings that Indra transformed himself, to do the Teacher honor; and often they speak of the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses as if these were regarded as spirits. Demons and inferior beings are also utilized in the same way, as when it is said that at the Teacher's birth the demons (spirits) showered gold upon the town.

The religious orders of the cvet[=a]mbara sect contained nuns as well as monks, although, as we have said, women are not esteemed very favorably: "The world is greatly troubled by women. People say that women are vessels of pleasure. But this leads them to pain, to delusion, to death, to h.e.l.l, to birth as h.e.l.l-beings or brute-beasts."

Such is the decision in the [=A]e[=a]r[=a]nga S[=u]tra, or book of usages for the Jain monk and nun. From the same work we extract a few rules to ill.u.s.trate the practices of the Jains. This literature is the most tedious in the world, and to give the gist of the heretic law-maker's manual will suffice.

Asceticism should be practiced by monk and nun, if possible. But if one finds that he cannot resist his pa.s.sions, or is disabled and cannot endure austerities, he may commit suicide; although this release is sometimes reprehended, and is not allowable till one has striven against yielding to such a means. But when the twelve years of asceticism are pa.s.sed one has a.s.surance of reaching Nirv[=a]na, and so may kill himself. Of Nirv[=a]na there is no description. It is release, salvation, but it is of such sort that in regard to it 'speculation has no place,' and 'the mind cannot conceive of it'

(copied from the Upanishads). In other regards, in contrast to the nihilistic Buddhist, the Jain a.s.sumes a doubtful att.i.tude, so that he is termed the 'may-be philosopher,' _sy[=a]dv[=a]din_,[24] in opposition to the Buddhist, the philosopher of 'the void.'

But if the Jain may kill himself, he may not kill or injure anything else. Not even food prepared over a fire is acceptable, lest he hurt the 'fire-beings,' for as he believes in water-beings, so he believes in fire-beings, wind-beings, etc. Every plant and seed is holy with the sacredness of life. He may not hurt or drive away the insects that torment his naked flesh. 'Patience is the highest good,' he declares, and the rules for sitting and lying conclude with the statement that not to move at all, not to stir, is the best rule. To lie naked, bitten by vermin, and not to disturb them, is religion. Like a true Puritan, the Jain regards pleasure in itself as sinful. "What is discontent, and what is pleasure? One should live subject to neither.

Giving up all gaiety, circ.u.mspect, restrained, one should lead a religious life. Man! Thou art thine own friend; why longest thou for a friend beyond thyself?... First troubles, then pleasures; first pleasures, then troubles. These are the cause of quarrels." And again, "Let one think, 'I am I.'" _i.e_., let one be dependent on himself alone. When a Jain monk or nun hears that there is to be a festival (perhaps to the G.o.ds, to Indra, Skahda, Rudra, Vishnu,[25] or the demons, as in [=A]c[=a]r[=a]nga S[=u]tra, ii. 1. 2) he must not go thither; he must keep himself from all frivolities and entertainments.

During the four months of the rainy season he is to remain in one place,[26] but at other times, either naked or attired in a few garments, he is to wander about begging. In going on his begging tour he is not to answer questions, nor to retort if reviled. He is to speak politely (the formulae for polite address and rude address are given), beg modestly, and not render himself liable to suspicion on account of his behavior when in the house of one of the faithful.

Whatever be the quality of the food he must eat it, if it be not a wrong sort. Rice and beans are especially recommended to him. The great Teacher Jn[=a]triputra (Mah[=a]v[=i]ra), it is said, never went to shows, pantomines, boxing-matches, and the like; but, remaining in his parents' house till their death, that he might not grieve his mother, at the age of twenty-eight renounced the world with the consent of the government, and betook himself to asceticism; travelling naked (after a year of clothes) into barbarous lands, but always converting and enduring the reproach of the wicked. He was beaten and set upon by sinful men, yet was he never moved to anger.

Thus it was that he became the Arhat, the Jina, the Kevalin (perfect sage).[27] It is sad to have to add, however, that Mah[=a]v[=i]ra is traditionally said to have died in a fit of apoplectic rage.

The equipment of a monk are his clothes (or, better, none), his alms-bowl, broom, and veil. He is 'unfettered,' in being without desires and without injury to others. 'Some say that all sorts of living beings may be slain, or abused, or tormented, or driven away--the doctrine of the unworthy. The righteous man does not kill nor cause others to kill. He should not cause the same punishment for himself.'

The last clause is significant. What he does to another living being will be done to him. He will suffer as he has caused others to suffer.

The chain from emotion to h.e.l.l--the avoidance of the former is on account of the fear of the latter--is thus connected: He who knows wrath knows pride; he who knows pride knows deceit; he who knows deceit knows greed (and so on; thus one advances) from greed to love, from love to hate, from hate to delusion, from delusion to conception, from conception to birth, from birth to death, from death to h.e.l.l, from h.e.l.l to animal existence, 'and he who knows animal existence knows pain.'

The five great vows, which have been thought by some scholars to be copies of the Buddhistic rules, whereas they are really modifications of the old Brahmanic rules for ascetics as explained in pre-Buddhistic literature, are in detail as follows:[28]