Later Jainism
The apparent austerity of Jainism was complemented by a considerable culture-forming power, at least in certain regions of India and during certain periods. Moving from Gujarat and Rajasthan southwards in the western half of India, via Maharastra and Karnataka, and ending in Tamilnadu, we travel through regions which at some time or other during the last two millennia have been strongly influenced by the Jains.
Thus many of the various languages spoken in these regions were actually moulded by Jains as vehicles of literary expression. The Jain literature in Tamil, Kannada and Gujarati in particular is of staggering size. Besides, the Jains continued cultivating Prakrit (in its Maharastri form), frequently resorted to Sanskrit and made ample use of Apabhramsa (a literary language derived from an early medieval vernacular of the Gujarat/Rajasthan area). Northern Maharastra can be regarded as a very rough dividing line between the Svetambara and Digambara branches, the latter belonging to the southern part.In the south, Jainism flourished during almost the whole of the first millennium ce, though much later works were still produced in Tamil. In Gujarat the Jains began to dominate the political and cultural scene towards the close of the first millennium ce, and, though suffering heavily from Islamic persecution, have maintained their prominence till the present day.
In the history of Tamil literature, the Jains are not only known for their ancient moralistic classics (like the Tirukkural and Naldtiydr). They also cultivated a large amount of local, originally secular, folklore and epic material. The best-known work in this category is the epic Cilappatikdram (perhaps of the fifth or sixth century ce). The year 892 ce saw the completion of another major literary enterprise. Began by Jinasena, continued by his disciple Gunabhadra and finished by the latter’s disciple Lokasena, under the title of the Mahd-Purdna (Adi- and Uttara-Purdna) a grandiose vista of world history and the role of the Jaina saviour-figures in it was expressed in the prestigious Sanskrit.
To the many later works dealing with these themes and written in various vernacular languages must be added, on the Svetambara side, Hemacandra’s History of the 63 Great Men (written in Sanskrit in the twelfth century in Gujarat). On a gigantic scale Jainism has produced here its own version of the epic and puranic literature. Starting therefore with the origins of our present cosmic age, the figure of Rsabha is presented as the Jain culture-hero, who not only made the Jain teaching available to our aeon, but also instituted social structures and so on. Twenty-three further such tirtharikaras, religious founders, followed after him, the penultimate being Parsva and the last one, the Mahavira. Alongside these figures, twelve universal emperors (cakravartins) are mentioned (three of whom also count as tirtharikaras). In addition, from the Krsna and Rama stories were developed three series of nine Vasudevas (equivalent to Krsnas), anti-Krsnas and Baladevas (equivalent to the Krsnas’ half-brothers). These are the 63 heroes. By telling the life-stories of all these, the Jains could not only incorporate the material which also found expression in the Mahabharata, Rdmdyana and earlier Puranas; they could also draw on and develop a vast store of other stories, myths and legends.Generally, the Jains were the great tellers of religious stories in India. This literature, obviously intended for the edification of lay people, is vast. In endlessly variegated form the key tenets of Jainism are shown to apply to a person’s life: the pernicious effects greed and lust, hatred and violence have on subsequent existences. From among this almost unsur- veyably large range of material, the story of Yasodhara may be singled out because of its particularly frequent and sophisticated treatment; perhaps best known is the Yasastilaka-campil of Somadeva, 959 ce. Because king Yasodhara had permitted the ‘sacrifice’ of a cock made of dough, for many further existences he had to pay for this minimal act of violence by suffering the utmost cruelties.
Without apparently suffering a loss of their essential teaching and religious identity, the Jains adopted a variety of other features from their environment. Although in terms of their teaching the veneration of images cannot make any sense, thejains took to temple building on a large scale. Images of the tirtharikaras have been installed, piljd is being performed and hymns full of the spirit ofbhakti are sung. The tirtharikaras in the state of moksa may not be addressable through these forms of devotion. But as well-intended pious acts these religious expressions are generally acknowledged to produce merit. But in fifteenth-century Gujarat—possibly under the influence of Muslim ideas—a Jain layman, Lonka Saha, founded a movement (the Sthanakavasins) in opposition to the widespread Svetambara acceptance of temple worship.
Given the extent to which Jain doctrine had been formulated from early times, it was far more difficult for the Jain philosophers to participate in the discussions and trends that dominated the Indian scene. What was developed over the centuries as the syadvdda, the ‘teaching that [things] may be [this, or may be that]’, must be regarded as a primarily defensive device. This means that there are always a whole range of possible viewpoints (a list of seven evolved) from which any item can be approached. No single statement can thus encompass the whole truth. However, a thinker like Kundakunda (a Digambara from the Deccan, perhaps fourth century ce) showed that adjustments to the current trends in Buddhist and Hindu thought were possible. The archaic emphasis on the materially conceived karma as the cause ofsamsdra, and the corresponding cultivation of physical modes of eradicating it, stood in stark contrast to most of Hindu and Buddhist thought. Where these did not focus on ‘ignorance’ as the cause of samsdra, and on meditation as the primary spiritual practice, they emphasised devotion, bhakti, and the role of divine grace. Kundakunda made ‘ignorance’ (ajhdna) the primary cause of samsdra.
By distinguishing now a level of relative from that of ultimate truth, he argued that only on the former does the soul (Jtva) appear to be active, and thus appear to be generating further karma. On the level of ultimate truth, the jtva merely perceives its own nature, and that as totally distinct from everything material. To realise this is, according to him, liberation. Such a new focus, away from tapas towards meditation (which naturally is the means for thejtva to realise the ultimate truth), was also made use ofin a different context. Although the Jains on the whole did not participate in the ‘tantric’ developments to be mentioned in the next chapter, or merely externally adopted the usage of certain mantras and yantras, we do find traces of an antinomian attitude similar to that of the nominally Hindu sants. Apabhramsa works like the Paramappapayasu (end of first millennium?) attack external religious practices (including the adherence to labels like ‘svetambara’ and the inferior role of women in religion) and advocate the cultivation of inner spiritual values and of‘knowledge’.It is very difficult to compare the role ofjainism with that of Buddhism in the context of the Indian religions. Given the almost total disappearance of Buddhist literature from India, it is impossible to assess the cultural face of Buddhism during the period studied here. Yet this itself may suggest a hint of an explanation. Possibly Buddhism suffered so much worse under the hands of the Muslims because it had far less contact with its lay populace—because it lacked the ‘cultural face’ Jainism consistently developed.