Shaivism and Jainism

[Guest guest]

Reference: Message no. 1495 by Dr. N. Ganesan dt. 17 August 2001

 

I got the following response from a Sri Lankan scholar, who prefers

to remain un-named. Not familiar with the subject myself, I have no

personal opinion, and am reproducing his view as it is -

 

QUOTE

Richard Davis is not the author I refer to. His article came out in

1998 and appears to emphasize Saivite borrowing from Jainism as a one

way street. The book I referred to was authored by someone else. He

was perhaps a Colombia University professor (Morton Klass???) who

published in the early 1990s and argued that Saivism and Jainism go

back to an earlier shared paradigm which defined them both.

 

Mr. N. Ganeshan appears to pay a lot of emphasis on Saivite

persecution of the Jains (where the latter were impaled on the

stakes). There are perhaps two or three references in the Tevaram to

this incident in response to what the Jains had earlier persecution

perpetuated on the Saivites.

 

I agree that Jain contributions to Tamil literature were considerable.

But I would not describe it as a 2000 year contribution. The Jain

impact was for a few centuries and led to the wholesale influx of

Sanskrit and Prakrit words into the Tamil language, a fact that the

"Dravidian nationalists" would prefer to ignore.

 

On a related topic, I would like to refer you to controversies between

Confucianists and Buddhists in Tang Dynasty China, Yi Dynasty Korea

and Meiji Japan. The Confucianists dismissed Buddhism as other wordly

and socially irresponsible. They charged that Buddhist monks were

parasites on society. The Confucianists added that economic activity,

military defence and the larger duty to society suffered due to the

pessimism, the life negating attitude and mass entry of the productive

age group into the Buddhist clergy. The Confucianists subjected

Buddhism to extensive restrictions in 9th century China, 13th century

Korea and 19th century Japan. They maintained that Buddhism sapped the

popular vigor.

 

It might be useful to also explore the inadvertent and unintended

contribution of Buddhism to the hardening of untouchability. The

Buddha described the human body as impure, subject to decay and not

worthy of attachment. He referred to sweat, bone marrow, mucous, bile,

blood, menstrual fluid, saliva etc etc to emphasize the body as

unclean. The intent was to curtail desire. However, those handling

dead bodies, meat products or washing clothes thus dealt with

'unclean' substances. King Ashoka, likewise, banished those who earned

a living from selling meat to the outskirts of the city. This was to

prevent the killing of animals in the city limits but also represents

the first recorded instance of officially mandated segregation on

occupational lines.

 

Medieval Korea and Japan experienced untouchability. The untouchables

of Japan were called the "Burakumin" or "Eta". How did the practice of

untouchability, albeit lesser in scale, travel to those far off

countries? It was the Buddhist monks who introduced Indian custom,

practice and technology to the Far East. They might have inadvertently

introduced this practice as well. The hypothesis merits further

investigation.

UNQUOTE