Another one!
http://sdhammika.blogspot.sg/2012/06/why-one-an…
WHY ONE AND NOT THE OTHER?
Mahavira, the founder of the religion that came to be known as
Jainism was an older contemporary of the Buddha and is mentioned
frequently in the Tipitaka. By the time the Buddha started teaching
Jainism was already popular. Vappa the Buddha’s cousin (according
to the commentaries) became a Jain. Of the various religious
movements that emerged in the 5th century BCE
Buddhism and Jainism were the only ones that survived for more than
a few hundred years. Upanisadic spirituality which began a little
before this time was not a distinct religious movement but one
within Brahmaninism. By the 2nd century BCE
Jainism had lost the edge to Buddhism and forever after remained a
minor although vibrant religion. Chandragupta, the first Mauryan
emperor, converted to Jainism but this did not have the effect on
the religion that the conversion of his grandson Asoka had on
Buddhism.
Mahavira’s life parallels rather startlingly with the Buddha’s. He
was born of a ksatriyan chief named Siddhattha, married a woman
named Yasoda, had one child, a daughter named Anoja, renounced the
world at the age of 20 and became enlightened (kevala) at 28 while
sitting at the foot of a sal tree. He passed away at the age of 72.
Why these and other similarities? Here is one possible explanation.
Almost none of the events in the classical biography of the Buddha
– the events surrounding his birth, being the son of a king,
marriage, being father to a son, his life in the palace, seeing of
the four sights, etc; are not from the scriptures, i.e. they are
later legends. The Tipitaka records virtually nothing about the
Buddha’s life until his Great Renunciation. Few people know that
nowhere in the Tipitaka does it even mention that the Buddha’s
personal name was Siddhattha. Even the very late and very legendary
Mahapadana Sutta (D.II,1) doesn’t mentions it. When in later
centuries a full biography of the Buddha was needed, much of the
details may have been ‘lifted’ from the biography of
Mahavira.
Mahavira founded an order of monks and nuns but also an order of
lay people called ‘devotees of the sramamas’ (sramanopasakas) who
stood somewhere between monks and nuns and the lay community and
acted as a bridge between them. About 150 years after Mahavira’s
passing the Jain monastic community split into two, becoming the
Digambaras (Sky-clad, i.e. naked) and the Svetambaras (White-clad).
This split was and remains even today more bitter and more complete
than that between the Savakayana and Mahayana in Buddhism. Even in
ancient times Buddhist monks of different outlooks sometimes lived
in the same monastery. This never happened in Jainism. What is not
widely known is that the Digambara sangha is very small, there
place being taken by the sramanopasakas. The Svetambaras, on the
other hand still have a large monastic sangha. Today, Digambara
Jains live mainly in the southern Deccan while Svetambaras are
found mainly in Gujarat and Rajasthan. All Jains form a close-knit
and usually prosperous community. They have traditionally been
money-lenders, grain merchants and jewelers.
You really sees the deeper spirit of the Jains when you go into
their temples. Unlike many Hindu mandir or math, they are clean,
quiet, orderly and neither the presiding pujari (monk or priest) or
anyone else will badger you for money. When I visited the
magnificent Dilwari temples on Mt Abu I arrived early and was told
that no one was allowed in until noon. I could see people in the
temple and asked the door guardian why them and not me. ‘They are
Jains’ he replied. A bit miffed by this and not wanting to have to
come back again in the afternoon (I’d walked all the way from
town), I asked to see the person in charge. I was led to office
where a man, apparently the manager, greeted me politely and asked
what I wanted. I told him that I was a Buddhist monk and that I
would like to see the temple. ‘A Buddhist monk!’ he said with an
expression of admiration and then bowed to me. ‘You are most
welcome’ he continued and then added, ‘We reserve the morning for
our people so they can do their devotions in peace. I understood
what he meant; an air of sanctity and peace is not common in the
average Hindu temple.
Now what is all this leading up to? Well, I wanted to address, if
only briefly, the question of why Buddhism disappeared in India and
Jainism didn’t. The oft repeated notion that Buddhism was wiped out
by the Muslims is a myth. Buddhism was already tittering on the
edge when the Muslims invaded. They merely hastened the inevitable.
I would like to discuss some differences between Buddhism and
Jainism and suggest that these might have something to do with it.
(1) At a fairly early period the Buddha was turned into a god in
all but name. In the Sadharmapundarika Sutra (1st cent CE) he is
already an eternal transcendental being. Later Mahayana developed
this concept even further. This made it much easier for Buddhism to
be absorbed into Hinduism, which indeed did eventually happen. The
bodhisattvas, although technically not gods, had a similar effect.
The Jains never compromised with theism, they never deified
Mahavira or the other Titankaras, thus keeping a clear dividing
line between themselves and Hinduism. (2) Mahayana sutras and
sastras are highly speculative and philosophical in nature. It is
clear that they were written by and for a tiny intellectual
monastic elite. There is almost nothing in this huge body of
literature that would be understandable to the overwhelming
majority of the Buddhist population; the average simple
householder. The Jain scholar Padmanabh Jaini has pointed that in
2000 years Jainism produced over 50 manual of practice for lay
people (savakacara), while the Savakayana (including Theravada)
produced only one, the Upasakajanalankara, and then not until the
11th century and I wouldn’t mind betting that almost no Theravadins
have ever heard of it. To the best of my knowledge Mahayana only
produced one such work too, the Upaskaksila Sutra. It is true that
there were ‘popular works like the Divyavadana and the Jatakamala
but these were in Sanskrit and thus once again only available to
the elite. The Buddhist sangha made little effort to present the
Dhamma in a way and in languages accessible to the average person.
(3) The long slow decline of Buddhism in India can probably be
dated from the Brahmanical revival during the Gupta period (which
led to the emergence of Hinduism) when devotion to Visnu and
Krishna became enormously popular and the great epics, Mahabharata
and the Ramayana, reached their final form. The Jains responded to
these challenges by audaciously composing their own versions of the
epics in which the distinct ethics and attitudes of Jainism were to
presented in a popular and appealing manner. They out-maneuvered
Hinduism. Buddhism on the other hand, copied it, thus becoming
closer to it. To each new Hindu deity Buddhism created a
bodhisattva equally good at answering prayers and granting wishes.
The Buddhist heavens became as crowded as the platform at Howrah
Railway Station. It must have been easy for the Buddhist leaving a
shrine to Avalokitesvara to walk down the road and into the Visnu
mandir. The images looked similar, the pujas were similar and the
differences between the two deities were the domain of the scholars
and unknown to the ‘man in the street.’ As this trend became more
pronounced it led to the development of Vajrayana where many
deities were just copies of Hindu ones (e.g. Vasudhara is Laksmi,
Kurukulla is Kamadevi, etc), some were given slightly different
names and attributes (e.g. Kali and Mahakala) and others (e.g.
Sarasvati) were taken over holus bolus. The main image in the
well-known Kadri Manjunath Temple in Mangalore is of
Avalokitesvara. The historian M. Govinda Pai has shown that this
temple was originally a Buddhist one. It was not ‘turned into’ a
Hindu temple, it simply ‘morphed’ into one as Buddhism itself
morphed into Hinduism. (4) Jain monks have always ministered to
their lay community with great diligence in the intellectual,
social and personal domains. When Jainism was persecuted, as it
sometimes was in south India, Jain monks risked comfort and life to
continue teaching their communities. Even when monks and nuns have
been too few to go around, the sramanopasakas have filled in the
gap, continuing to teach and offer guidance and leadership to the
lay community. This is in marked contrast to the Buddhist sangha.
There are and always have been active Buddhist monks and nuns but
they have done this on their personal initiative. But they didn’t
have to do it. If they had settled back and done nothing, the lay
community would have still honored and supported them. As it is,
the average Theravadin monk’s idea of helping others is to make
himself available to receive dana. Buddhist monks have primarily
been objects of devotion, Jain monks have been primarily been
mediums of support and instruction. This attitude is not so
pronounced within the Tibetan or Chinese sangha but it is common
enough. I heard a senior Western monk of the Thai forest tradition
in England once say, ‘If we can’t follow our Vinaya here we’ll just
go back to Thailand.’ This statement epitomizes the Buddhist
sangha’s priorities. If this attitude prevailed in ancient India,
and I suspect it did, it is not hard to understand why the lay
community slowly drifted into Hinduism. Tibetan sources show that
during and after the Islamic invasion of India literally hundreds
of monks and siddhas fled to Nepal and Tibet. One can hardly blame
them, but this must have left the Buddhist community, a community
that knew little Dhamma and whose main religious practice was to
support the sangha, without leadership, focus or identity.
I don’t think these four things are the only reasons Buddhism
disappeared in India and Jainism didn’t, but I do think they were
important contributing factors. I also think that modern Buddhists,
particularly those in the West, should give long hard thought to
this interesting and perhaps relevant phenomena.
Shravasti Dhammika at 7:05 AM
