JAINISMO. – Jainism is a philosophical-religious movement which seems to have arisen around the 8th century B.C. in north-eastern India, as a reaction against Brahmanical orthodoxy, and was subsequently consolidated in the 6th century B.C. through the work of a reforming ascetic named Vardhamāna, called Mahāvīra (v. Hero”).
SUMMARY:
I. Generalities
II. Development of the sect
III. The canonical books
IV. The three jewels: faith, knowledge, conduct
V. Diffusion.I. GENERALITIES
The followers of the sect, who were originally called Nirgrantha (“without bonds”), subsequently assumed the name jaina, derived from the appellation Jina (“Victor”) given to the prophets of the sect. These, called Tirthankara or Tirthankara (“those who make the law”), are regarded by the jaina as the revealers and protectors of the Jain doctrine, since their work is limited to periodically re-establishing among men, in its purity, the law that has existed ab aeterno. Thus there is a long series of 720 Tirthankara who have succeeded one another and will continue to succeed one another in time and space, in order to ensure the survival of the doctrine in the world. For the jaina, in fact, men are distributed among ten regions of the universe, which is subject to three ages (past, present, and future), and in each of these inhabited regions there is, for each age, the manifestation of 24 Tirthankara. The last of the 24 prophets who succeeded one another in the present age in the region inhabited by us is precisely Mahāvīra. He therefore cannot be considered the founder of a new religion, but rather the reformer of a sect that had already existed for a long time. Indeed, even the 23rd Tirthankara preceding him, Pārva, who according to the Jain texts lived 250 years before Mahāvīra, seems to have been a historical person and the true founder of j.II. DEVELOPMENT OF THE SECT
At the death of Mahāvīra, the leadership of the sect, which according to some texts was already flourishing at that time, was assumed by the first of his disciples, Gautama, and subsequently by Sudharma, who had outlived the master. Under them and their successors the sect continued to prosper and flourishing schools were founded, but disagreements and schisms also began to appear.These conflicts culminated in the 1st century A.D. in the division of the jaina into two rival sects, ivetāmbara and digambara. To understand the causes of this schism, however, one must go back to the 4th century B.C. The texts relate, in fact, that the pontiff of that time, Bhadrabāhu, foreseeing a terrible famine in northern India lasting 11 years, persuaded part of the community to emigrate to Mysore. Meanwhile, the difficulties of life compelled the jaina who remained in the north to violate one of Mahāvīra’s precepts, that prescribing nudity for ascetics. Consequently, when the emigrant jaina, who had remained faithful to the tradition, returned, they disapproved of the conduct of their northern co-religionists; and, since no agreement was reached, the schism occurred: the northerners took the name ivetāmbara (clothed in white), while the emigrants took that of digambara (clothed in air, that is, naked). This account has also been regarded as historical by Jacobi, since it is highly plausible, and the period designated coincides precisely with serious economic disturbances that occurred in northern India as a result of political struggles.
III. THE CANONICAL BOOKS
But although officially the schism was attributed to so trivial a reason, in reality there were other and far more serious grounds for disagreement between the two groups, especially with regard to the canonical literature. The digambara, in fact, do not admit the authenticity of the canonical books, which the ivetāmbara trace back, if not precisely to Mahāvīra, at least to his most immediate disciples.The latter are said to have transmitted the master’s teachings by memory, dividing them into 14 groups called Pārva, from which 11 summaries called Aṅga were subsequently extracted. The Pārva, always transmitted orally from one pontiff to another, were gradually almost entirely forgotten, so that in 312 B.C. the Jaina of the north were compelled to convene a council at Pāṭaliputra (Patna) in order to collect what remained of the Pārva into a twelfth Aṅga. This too, however, gradually fell into oblivion, so that after many centuries, at the Council of Valabhi (5th century A.D.), the canonical literature of the Jaina had been reduced to the sole 11 Aṅga, which, after careful revision, were finally committed to writing, together with other later collections. Thus came into being the Siddhānta (“Code of Liberation”), comprising 45 treatises, of which the 11 Aṅga constitute the oldest part. The digambara, having refused to acknowledge the work carried out by the Council of Pāṭaliputra, declared both the Pārva and the Aṅga lost and adopted as canonical books three great treatises by the celebrated master Puspadanta, together with other more recent works. Around the Siddhānta, written in Ardhamāgadhi (the language presumed to have been used by Mahāvīra in his teaching), an enormous exegetical literature soon developed, both in Prākrit and in Sanskrit. The doctrine was popularized and made accessible to the people through collections of allegorical tales, hymns, and religious dramas. A typical example of this allegorical-didactic literature, full of good intentions but exceedingly tedious and devoid of artistic value, is the Upamitibhavaprapāṇā kathā (“The Allegorical Tale of Human Life”), written in the 10th century by Siddhāri (published in the Bibliotheca Indica, edited by P. Peterson and H. Jacobi, Calcutta 1914, and translated in the first three chapters by A. Ballini, in Giornale della Soc. asiat. ital., vols. XVII-XXIII).
IV. THE THREE JEWELS: FAITH, KNOWLEDGE, CONDUCT
Like almost all Indian religions, j. too affirms that the world is suffering and proposes to lead human beings to liberation, to nirvāṇa, by combating false beliefs (mithyātva) through the teaching of the true doctrine (samyaktva). In order to eradicate from the soul the love of existence and annul the personality that binds man to the succession of rebirths (sāṃsāra), the Jaina must possess three elements that constitute the essence of the doctrine, the so-called “three jewels” (Triratna): right faith (samyagdariāna), right knowledge (samyagjñāna), and right conduct (samyakcaritra).Since j. is an atheistic system, right faith in no way implies belief in any creative and sustaining principle of the universe. It consists simply in believing in the law revealed by the Tirthankara and taught by the masters of the community. For the Jaina, the objects of faith and veneration also include the supreme Beings, Arhat (blessed) and Siddha (perfect), whose souls have attained nirvāṇa; as well as the masters and ascetics, who bear witness to the truth of the law, the former through teaching and the latter through example. Naturally, the first place in the hierarchy of these venerable beings belongs to the Tirthankara, whom the people have ultimately come to regard as actual divinities, to whom offerings are made and from whom favors are requested. For educated persons, on the other hand, all these Beings are merely souls superior to ordinary men, regarded with respect, and the temples and images dedicated to them serve only to remind people of the merits of these benefactors. In this way j. seeks to justify the forms of worship widespread among the people, which conflict with its fundamental atheism.
The second of the jewels, right knowledge, comprises the body of metaphysical, logical, and cosmological doctrines that will serve as the basis of Jaina ethics. The followers of Mahāvya proceed from a conception of being completely different from that of the Brahmans or the Buddhists: they affirm, in fact, that Being is neither one, eternal, and immutable, as stated in the Upaniṣad, nor nonexistent, according to the well-known Buddhist theory; rather, they maintain that being, or more precisely substance (draṣya), is indeed characterized by eternal existence, since it is real and enduring, but is neither one nor immutable, since it manifests itself through various qualities and modes that are transient and subject to destruction. Being is therefore indeterminate and in a process of continual becoming. To clarify this concept, called anekāntavāda (the theory of indeterminacy), the Jaina resort to the example of the potter who makes a bowl from clay: the substance, which is permanent, passes from one form of existence, the raw form, to another form; there is therefore the destruction of one mode of existence and the production of another, while the substance remains unchanged. J. postulates the existence of 6 kinds of substances, divided into two categories: on the one hand the jīva (soul, vital principle), which represents animate substance; on the other, inanimate substances (ajīva), comprising matter (puāgala), space (bhāla), time (kāla), dharma, and adharma. The jīva is immaterial, eternal, formless, characterized by consciousness (cetanā), and is therefore opposed to matter, which is also eternal but corporeal and perceptible to the senses. Just as the atoms of matter are infinite, so too souls are infinite in number, since everything that exists, from man to the infinitesimal particles of earth, possesses a soul. Space provides the soul and matter with a place in which to exist; dharma makes them capable of movement, and adharma enables them to remain motionless. This particular conception of dharma and adharma belongs exclusively to j. The essential attribute of the soul, consciousness, manifests itself through two activities: perception and knowledge. Through perception (darśana) one obtains a general, vague, and indeterminate notion of things; through knowledge (jñāna), by contrast, the soul apprehends things in their details and possesses an analytical knowledge of them. Consequently, j. admits two methods of knowledge: one synthetic, called syādvāda, which is characteristic of this system, and the other analytical, called nayavāda. The term syādvāda may be translated as “the theory of possibility,” since the Jaina seek to demonstrate that, as the essential nature of things cannot be known, because substances are indeterminate (anekāntavāda) and attributes vary, we can do nothing but consider them now from one point of view and now from another; hence every statement made concerning something is possible only from a certain point of view:
of one and the same object one may say, for example, “this is an inkpot” or “this is not a glass,” etc. This method of knowledge is called synthetic because it considers a thing as a whole; it is complemented by the analytical method, which considers things under a single aspect or examines one attribute to the exclusion of the others.
Just as the specific attribute of the soul is consciousness, that of matter is corporeality, which enables it to assume different forms and makes it perceptible to the senses by virtue of its 4 qualities (gūṇa): tangibility, taste, odor, and color. The infinite atoms (aṇu) of which it is composed combine into compounds (skandha) resembling molecules, from whose union bodies arise. These skandha may be gross (sthūlo), giving rise to the larger and heavier bodies, or subtle (sūkṣma), like those that constitute karma and the vital powers.
The conception of karma as something material is proper to the Jains: subtle matter, insofar as it flows over the soul and forms with it a kind of chemical combination, becomes karma and imprisons the soul in matter, obscuring its splendor and imposing upon it a material body. This amalgam of matter and soul may be of eight kinds, according to the effect it produces: it may obscure the individual’s perception of things, impede his moral progress, determine the social condition in which he will live, the duration of his life, and so forth. The result of this combination between the soul and subtle matter is the kārmanāśarīra, a subtle body that attaches itself to the soul and accompanies it in its successive rebirths, determining the individual’s condition. Simultaneously with this process of absorbing karma, however, there also takes place in the soul a process of discharge (nirjārā), whereby the karma that has already produced its effect is expelled from the soul. When the soul succeeds in discharging all the karma already absorbed without taking on any new karma, it returns to its essential splendor and liberation occurs. Since each particular karma is caused by actions performed by the individual, there are good and bad karma that produce pleasant or painful consequences. But whether good or bad, karma always causes rebirth, keeping the soul bound to matter. Hence the necessity of destroying the karma already accumulated and simultaneously preventing the assumption of new karma. To achieve this result, it is necessary to possess the third jewel, right conduct (samyakcaritra), comprising the precepts of Jain morality, which, since they aim at the absolute annihilation of matter, are of inhuman severity. Jain morality is founded upon five principal precepts or vows (vrata), common to monks and laypeople, which prohibit the Jain from murder, lying, theft, sexual relations, and covetousness. Observance of these precepts is made possible by the three restraints (gupti), meditation, isolation, and so forth, which separate man from the world and give him perfect mastery over all his actions and functions.
An enormous mass of minute disciplinary rules was devised by the Jains in order to avoid the assumption of new karma, while the elimination of that already assumed is achieved through external ascetic practices (fasting, extending even to voluntary death through starvation, segregation, yogic practices, and so forth) and internal practices (penance, devotion to superiors, meditation, etc.). For the Jains, therefore, the ideal state for attaining liberation is the monastic state, to which women too are admitted; but since not everyone can withdraw from the world and possess the strength to follow such severe rules, Jainism mitigated its prescriptions for laypeople (śrāvaka = hearers). Although the five principal precepts remained binding for them as well, they were interpreted more broadly, especially the last two. The process of liberation thus underwent a slowing for the lay devotee.
Jainism, like Buddhism, asserts that the only condition in which liberation can be attained is the human condition: consequently, even the gods, who are merely souls that have risen to a happier condition through having acted well, are compelled to descend again to earth in order to attain liberation. Jainism, which had been obliged to accept part of the Brahmanic pantheon as a natural concession to the popular mentality, thus sought not to renounce its atheistic foundation. In the universe as conceived by the Jains, the gods occupy the upper region (ardhya); the middle region (madhya), divided into ten areas, is reserved for human beings, while the lower region (adhya) is the world of the hells, where the souls of the wicked are reborn. Above everything, even above the gods, stand the liberated souls, in a kind of empirium, conceived in the form of an open umbrella overarching the universe, where, owing to the absence of the condition that governs motion (dharma), they remain motionless in eternal beatitude.
V. DIFFUSION
The severity of the discipline imposed on the Jaina, which extends even to the smallest acts of life, and the cardinal concept of non-violence (ahimsa), by which the killing of any form of life is forbidden, could not favor the widespread diffusion of this religion, which impeded any human activity conflicting with the first precept. It is therefore unsurprising that j. is found disseminated only among certain particular castes (merchants, bankers, jewellers), and that the number of its adherents has progressively declined. Even in antiquity, despite the exaggerated figures given by some texts, its proselytes cannot have been very numerous: j. remained confined to certain regions of India, whose boundaries it never crossed. This austere religion in fact lacked the sense of love and pity for human suffering, as well as the missionary impulse, that brought Buddhism to the conquest of the Asian masses.In present-day India, the Jaina constitute a small community (1,450,000), although a very powerful one because of its economic position. They are found chiefly in the region of Bombay, in Gujerat and Rajputana, and, to the south, in Mysore and the region of Madras. Bengal, the land of origin of j., now has only a few adherents. Given the Jaina’s favorable economic position, their temples and monasteries are extremely wealthy, some of them ranking among the masterpieces of Indian architecture. The principal ones are: in the north, the sanctuaries of Mount Abu in Rajputana and of the Satrunjaya and Girnar mountains in Gujerat, dating from the thirteenth century and later, as well as the temples of the principal cities (Delhi, etc.); in the south, the most famous and venerated site is Sravana Belgola, in Mysore. The Jaina finance many social institutions (schools, orphanages, etc.) and propaganda institutes, which disseminate their doctrines through texts and periodicals. Among the journals, the Jaina Gazette is published in English.