Buddhism and Jainism

Around 600 BCE the Ganga plains were buzzing with questions. Cities were growing, iron tools were clearing forests, merchants were getting rich, and yet the old religion of costly sacrifices and priestly rituals felt distant from daily life. Into this restless age walked a whole group of thinkers who left home, wandered from village to village and taught that the way to freedom lay in conduct and knowledge, not in sacrifice. They are called the Sramanas (wanderers or strivers), and the two greatest of them were Mahavira and Gautama Buddha.

Notice the economic logic. The new iron ploughshare made deep farming possible, but it needed a large stock of cattle. Vedic yajnas killed cattle in great numbers, so farmers were quietly unhappy. Buddhism and Jainism, which preached ahimsa, therefore found a ready audience among farmers and traders. Merchants (Vaishyas) liked the new faiths for another reason too: the old varna order ranked them below Brahmanas and Kshatriyas, but the new religions judged a person by conduct, not birth.

Buddhist texts such as the Samannaphala Sutta of the Digha Nikaya describe six famous teachers who were Buddha's contemporaries. Their ideas show how wide the range of heterodox thought was. Only two of these movements, Jainism and Buddhism, became lasting world religions; the Ajivikas survived for many centuries and then faded.

Jainism is older than Mahavira. Its tradition speaks of 24 Tirthankaras (literally 'ford-makers', those who help souls cross the ocean of rebirth). The first was Rishabhanatha (Adinatha), the 23rd was Parshvanatha, and the 24th and last was Vardhamana Mahavira. Historians accept Parshvanatha and Mahavira as historical figures; Mahavira did not found a new religion but reformed and organised an existing one.

Mahavira's life. Mahavira, originally named Vardhamana, was born around 540 BCE (the traditional Jain date is 599 BCE) at Kundagrama, near Vaishali in present-day Bihar. His father Siddhartha headed the Jnatrika (Jnatri) clan, part of the Vajji confederacy, and his mother Trishala was the sister of the Lichchhavi chief Chetaka of Vaishali. According to the Shvetambaras he married Yashoda and had a daughter, Priyadarshana; the Digambaras say he remained unmarried.

Mahavira's titles each carry a meaning. Jina = conqueror (of passions), which is why his followers are called Jains. Nirgrantha = free from bonds. Kevalin = one who has perfect knowledge. Arihant = destroyer of inner enemies. Mahavira = the great hero. Learn the titles as a set: they are a favourite way for exams to ask 'who is meant here?'.

The three jewels are together called the Triratna (three gems). Jainism says none of the three works alone: faith without knowledge is blind, knowledge without conduct is useless, and conduct without faith is empty. All three together are the path to moksha.

Core beliefs. Jainism holds that the universe is eternal and was not created by any god. Every living thing has a jiva (soul), and jivas are bound by karma, which Jains picture as fine matter that sticks to the soul. By strict self-control and penance the karmic matter is shed and the soul rises to moksha at the top of the universe. Even stones, water, fire and air are believed to hold souls in a simple form, which is why Jain ahimsa is the strictest of all religions: monks carry a broom to sweep insects away and cover the mouth with a cloth.

Anekantavada (many-sidedness) says that reality has many aspects and no single viewpoint can capture all of it. The classic example is the blind men and the elephant: each touches one part and claims to know the whole. Syadvada ('maybe' or 'in some respect') is the way of speaking that follows from it: every statement is true only from a certain standpoint. Together with Nayavada (the doctrine of standpoints), these are Mahavira's contribution to Indian logic.

After Mahavira's death the Jain order grew under a line of learned teachers. The story of how it later split into two sects is tied to a great famine in Magadha around 300 BCE, in the time of Chandragupta Maurya. As Jain tradition tells it, the teacher Bhadrabahu led a large group of monks to the south (to Karnataka, to the hill of Shravanabelagola) to escape the famine, while Sthulabhadra stayed back in Magadha with the rest. The monks who stayed took to wearing white cloth; those who went south kept to complete nudity. When they met again, the differences could not be bridged, and the order became Svetambara and Digambara.

Remember the pattern: both Jain councils happened late and far from Mahavira's time, because the teachings were first passed on by memory. The First Council tried to gather what was left after the famine; the Second finally put it in writing. For Buddhism the first council came almost at once after the Buddha's death; for Jainism it took roughly two centuries.

Patrons and spread. Jainism did not spread as widely as Buddhism, but it put down deep roots in the west and south. Tradition links Chandragupta Maurya to the faith, and Kharavela of Kalinga (1st century BCE) was a Jain patron. Mathura was a major Jain centre in the Kushana age. Later, the Ganga kings of Karnataka, the Rashtrakutas (Amoghavarsha I) and the Chaulukyas (Solankis) of Gujarat gave it strong support, and Jain merchants carried it across Gujarat and Rajasthan, where it remains strong today.

The man we call the Buddha was born as Siddhartha, a prince of the Shakya clan, a small republic in the foothills of the Himalaya. His family name was Gautama, so he is also called Gautama Buddha, and as a sage of the Shakyas he is Shakyamuni. 'Buddha' means the Awakened One (from the root budh, to wake or to know). His followers also call him Tathagata ('one who has thus gone') and Bhagavat. Dates vary between books: the commonly given life span is c. 563-483 BCE, though some modern scholars place his death nearer 400 BCE.

The search. Siddhartha first studied under two teachers, Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta, but felt their methods did not end suffering. For about six years he practised extreme fasting and self-torture at Uruvela with five companions (Kondanna and others). When his body became a skeleton and he still had no answer, he gave up extremes and accepted a bowl of milk-rice from the village girl Sujata. His five companions left him in disgust. This turning point gave rise to his Middle Path (Madhyama Pratipada): avoid both luxury and harsh self-denial.

The long ministry. For about 45 years the Buddha walked through Magadha, Kosala, Vatsa and the neighbouring republics, teaching in the language of the people. He spent most rainy seasons (vassa) in monasteries at Rajagriha, Vaishali and Shravasti. His great supporters included kings Bimbisara (who gave the Venuvana monastery at Rajagriha), Ajatashatru and Prasenajit of Kosala, and the rich merchant Anathapindika (who bought the Jetavana grove at Shravasti). The courtesan Amrapali of Vaishali gave him her mango grove.

Buddha was not worshipped as a god in his lifetime; he called himself a guide who had found a path. After his death at Kushinagar, his body was cremated and the relics were divided among eight claimants, who built eight stupas over them. This is where the tradition of the stupa begins, which grew into the main form of Buddhist architecture.

The Buddha did not begin with God, the soul or the creation of the world. He began with a simple observation that anyone can check in their own life: everything we cling to changes, and clinging to it hurts. His teaching, the Dhamma (Sanskrit Dharma), is therefore like a doctor's treatment: it names the illness, finds its cause, promises a cure and prescribes the medicine. These four steps are the Four Noble Truths (Arya Satya), the heart of his first sermon at Sarnath.

Nirvana means 'blowing out' (like a flame). It is the end of the fires of craving, hatred and delusion. The Buddha taught that it can be reached in this very life by a person who follows the Eightfold Path. Do not translate it as 'heaven' or 'death': it is freedom from the cycle of rebirth caused by craving. In Jainism the matching goal is Moksha / Kaivalya, reached by shedding karmic matter.

The Sangha (the order). The Buddha created a community of monks (bhikkhus) and, later, nuns (bhikkhunis), supported by lay followers (upasakas and upasikas). Monks lived on alms, owned only a few things (a robe, a bowl, a needle, a razor, a water strainer) and spent the rainy months (vassa) in one place. The rules of conduct are in the Vinaya Pitaka, and the main rules are recited every fortnight at the Uposatha assembly (the Patimokkha). The Sangha took decisions by discussion and agreement among members, like the republics of that time, and its members were drawn from all varnas.

The Triratna (three jewels) of Buddhism are Buddha (the teacher), Dhamma (the teaching) and Sangha (the community). A person becomes a Buddhist by 'taking refuge' in these three. Do not confuse it with the Jain Triratna (right faith, knowledge, conduct).

The Buddha left no written book. His words were remembered by monks and recited aloud, so soon after his death the monks felt the need to meet, agree on what he had really taught, and settle quarrels over the rules. These meetings are called Buddhist Councils (Sangitis). There were four in the standard Indian account. Each one solved a problem, and each one is linked to a king, a place and a president, which is exactly how exams ask about them.

A religion that stays in one valley dies with the valley. Buddhism travelled because it had three carriers: kings who patronised it, traders who carried it along the roads, and monks who were willing to walk to unknown lands. The turning point was Ashoka (3rd century BCE), who, after the Kalinga War, accepted Buddhism and sent missions in every direction. Later, Kanishka pushed it along the Silk Route into Central Asia and China, and the Palas carried its last great phase to Tibet.

Why did Buddhism decline in India? Several reasons worked together: the revival of Brahmanism and the Bhakti movement absorbed many of its ideas (even the Buddha became an avatar of Vishnu in some Puranas); Buddhism itself moved towards elaborate ritual and Tantra (Vajrayana), losing its simple appeal; royal patronage shifted away; and finally the Turkish invasions of Bihar (c. 1200 CE) destroyed the monasteries on which Indian Buddhism depended.

Aniconic to iconic. Early Buddhist art (Bharhut, Sanchi) did not show the Buddha as a human figure. It showed him through symbols: lotus (birth), horse (renunciation), Bodhi tree (enlightenment), wheel (first sermon), stupa (death), footprints and an empty throne. This is called the aniconic tradition. The first human images of the Buddha appear around the 1st century CE under the Kushanas, in the Gandhara and Mathura schools, as Mahayana ideas spread.

The Ajivikas deserve a short note, because exams link them with Ashoka. The sect was founded by Makkhali Gosala, who first lived with Mahavira and then went his own way. Its core belief was niyati (fate): everything, including liberation, is fixed in advance. Ajivika monks lived naked and practised hard austerities. The sect was strong in the Mauryan age: Ashoka and his grandson Dasharatha gave them caves in the Barabar and Nagarjuni hills (Bihar), and Bindusara is said to have favoured them. The Ajivikas slowly faded, though small groups lasted in South India for many centuries.