The Jain community of India was
successful in sustaining their unique identity at a time when Buddhism — its
contemporary religion — was in a state of decline to the point that it is
considered virtually wiped out of India. The differing fates of the two non-vedic religions arouse curiosity in
particular due to their many similarities as both Mahavira and Buddha, both kshatriyas from princely families turned
saints who left the household in their prime, each founding a sangha consisting of both monastic and lay
followers. Yet, an enigma stems from the decline and disappearance of Buddha’s
religion in his native land, even as the Jain community survived in continuum,
albeit without traveling outside India.
Although according to the 2011 census by religion, the number of
Buddhists in India (0.84 crore) is in fact double the number of Jains (0.45
crore), most of them are a result of a revival of Buddhism in modern times
such as the one embraced by a few Dalit communities and promulgated through the
presence of a Tibetan diaspora in India.
The challenges faced by Buddhism
and Jainism in the ancient period were quite similar. In spite of enjoying a
period of ascendancy and royal favour for a few centuries, one of the greatest challenges to Buddhism and Jainism
came from the resurgence of reformed Hinduism that began in the fourth and
the fifth century AD.
According to Dr Padmanabh S
Jaini, renowned scholar of Buddhism and Jainism at University of California
Berkeley, the popularity of the various Hindu devotional cults and particularly
of those associated with Rama and Krishna caused many defections from among the
lay followers by suggesting that Rshabha,
the first Tirthankara of Jains and Buddha had been incarnations of Vishnu. Jaini
suggests that while the Buddhist monks were unprepared to respond to these
grave development, the Jains “sought to
outflank the bhakti movement by taking its main cult-figures as their own”
by produced alternate versions of
Ramayana and Mahabharata, in which Rama and Krishna were depicted as worldly
Jaina heroes subject to laws of Jaina ethics. The ahimsa-practising Rama of Jaina Ramayana, for instance, does not kill
Ravana (Lakshmana does it) and is reborn in heaven as a result.
The Islamic invasion of the
Indian subcontinent between twelfth and sixteenth century is generally
recognised as era that dealt a setback to Indian religions, their worship places
and idols. “Although a great number of
Jaina temples in Gujarat and Rajasthan were converted into mosques in later
centuries,” writes Jaini, adding, “the Jainas of those areas not only survived
but were able to become important leaders in the economic life and government
of the Muslim regimes”.
The Jain community of medieval India shared relatively harmonious bonds
with Mughal ruling elite, via their spiritual leaders and affluent traders.
Emperors like Akbar and Jahangir are known to have conferred royal favours and released farmans or
imperial orders directing against slaughter of animals on certain stated days,
such as the Jain festival of Paryushan, in places around Jain religious
sites.
Dr Shalin Jain, Associate
Professor of History at University of Delhi, attributes the community’s
tenacity and survival to its cohesive
organisation, intra-community bonding and relative affluence as a result of
engagement with trade and commerce as its primary occupation.
Since Jains held that even unintentional activities generate karma, they
sought to avoid not only those modes of livelihood that clearly and always
cause harm to the living, but also any which might do so incidentally or
occasionally. Almost from its inception, a number of common occupations
including agriculture, animal
transportation and animal by-product trades were thus deemed unsuitable for
a practising Jain. “Eventually Jains came to largely eschew agriculture in all
its forms and to specialise chiefly in
trade and mercantile occupations, with the most favoured ones being
jewellery-making and money-lending,” writes Dr Christopher Key Chapple,
Professor of Indic theology at Loyola Marymount University. The community
became very accomplished in these two fields and grew affluent, which historically
helped its members stay influential and relevant in medieval India’s
multi-cultural society.
“If you look at the organisation
of this community as envisaged in Jainism — the fourfold division of society
known as the Chaturvidhasangha — a very deep, emotional bond exists between the community of Jain
ascetics and the Jain laymen,” says Jain, “The ascetics completely depend
on the lay people for food and shelter as they keep on traveling and have no
permanent abode; the community in turn holds in deep respect the traditions of
their monks and nuns. They invite and welcome them”. A similar bond between
ascetics and lay followers of Buddhism did not exist.
Another strong pillar of Jain
identity is its strong, unexceptionable
emphasis on vegetarianism, which attributes it with a distinct identity.
“In Jainism, both the ascetic and the householder subjectivity is weaved around
the principle of ahimsa which is expressed formally through the prism of this
dietary habit. This collective action of
dietary habit leads to community formation,” says Jain, “Vegetarianism is
there in Hinduism and Buddhism too, but there it is voluntary”.
Unlike these defining set of
criteria that Jainism could rely on, Buddhism floundered due to a lack of such
unifying criteria. While the Jains
eventually produced some 50 manuals on conduct proper to a Jain lay person,
Buddhists (as far as it is known) produced only one. The result of a weak
Buddhist identity and a weak community connection among them.
Complete Credit: Indian Express
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