Hindusim and Jainism
Jainism was not that much of peaceful in ancient time. It was having non-hindu characteristics containing in it. This inspired Brahmins to write against jains but literal works in spiritual books can not be taken as evidence for physical violence. Let’s see some Jain scriptures-
“The Jains are strictly prohibited to 1) praise a person belonging to another religion or to talk of his good qualities, 2) to salute him, 3) to talk much to him, 4) to talk to him frequently, 5) to bestow upon him food and clothes, 6) to supply odoriferous substances and flowers to enable him to worship his idol.” Jain scripture Vivekasâra, p.121
Let the wise consider with what feelings of hatred and hostility the Jainees are actuated in their relations with those who profess a religion different from theirs.
Jain teachers teach: “Just as a ruby, which is embedded in the head of a venomous snake, should not be sought after; even so it behooves the Jainees to shun the company of a non-Jainee, no matter how virtuous and learned he is.” Jain scripture Prakaraa Ratnâkara 2:29
It is clear, therefore, Jain sectarian was more biased.Similar quotations to the same effect include: “Let not the Jainees even look at those that are opposed to the Jain religion.”Jain scripture Prakaraa Ratnâkara 2:29
But, Hindus has never stressed on hatred writings of Jain scriptures for greater positive impact in the society. From the ancient time Jains, Buddhists and Hindus generally coexist peacefully. Seldom had they engaged in any conflicts.
Hindu, Jain and Allegation of Prosecution
Book of both W. Elliot and Smith Vincent suffers from later inscriptional discoveries which show peaceful coexistence of religious society in ancient India.
Though many non-secular historians and other anti-hindu writers would like to represent ancient Hinduism as a tyrannical faith that wrought massive destruction upon the jains. But History was likely defferent and complex than their interpretaions. If some one wants to believe in so called prosecution of Jain then Koenraad Elst has given a strong, effective, crisp and unbiased intellectual slap to non-secular historians on this matter. This should be known that Koenraad Elst in a prominent scholar in comparative religion.
{ During the Ayodhya conflict, Muslim and secularist polemicists tried to counter the Hindu argument about the thousands of Hindu temples razed by Islamic iconoclasm with the claim that Hindus had likewise destroyed or desecrated Buddhist and Jain temples. While the few cases of alleged Hindu aggression against Buddhism are either of doubtful historicity or easily and credibly explainable from other motives than religious intolerance, there are a few cases of conflict with Jainism which seem more serious.
For a start, in the 12th century, “in Gujarat, Jainism flourished during the reign of Kumarapala, but his successor [i.e. Ajayapala] persecuted the Jainas and destroyed their temples”.According to D.C. Ganguly: “The Jain chronicles allege that Ajayapâla was a persecutor of the Jains, that he demolished Jain temples, mercilessly executed the Jain scholar Ramachandra, and killed Ambada, a minister of Kumârapâla, in an encounter.”
Here, the alleged crime is related by the victims, not by the alleged aggressors (as is usually the case for Muslim iconoclasm). It is possible that they exaggerated, but I see no reason to believe that they simply invented the story. However, since the Jains had been dominant (“flourishing”) in the preceding period, one might suspect a case of retaliation here. We shall see shortly that in South India, what little of Hindu aggression against Jainism occurred was due precisely to earlier oppression by the Jains.
Ganguly adds that Jains had opposed Ajayapala’s accession to the throne: “After the death of Kumârapâla in AD 1171-72 there was a struggle for the throne between his sister’s son Pratâpamalla, who was apparently backed by the Jains, and Ajayapâla, son of Kumârapâla’s brother Mahîpâla, who seems to have been supported by the Brâhmanas.”Clearly, a political intrigue is involved of which we have not been given the full story. Predictably, Goel comments: “The instance she mentions from Gujarat was only the righting of a wrong which the Jains had committed under Kumârapâla.”
Next, there was the attack by the Paramara king Subhatavarman (r. 1193-1210) on Gujarat, in which “a large number of Jain temples in Dabhoi and Cambay” were “plundered” in retaliation of plundering of Hindu temples in Malwa by the Gujaratis during their invasion of Malwa under Jayasimha Siddharaja (d. 1143) who was under great Jain influence. Harbans Mukhia cites this as proof that “many Hindu rulers did the same [as the Muslims] with temples in enemy-territory long before the Muslims had emerged as a political challenge to these kingdoms”. However, it is well-known that the Muslims did more than just plunder: even temples where there was nothing to plunder were desecrated and destroyed or converted into mosques in many places, for the Muslims’ motive was not merely economic.
The most important and well-known case of “persecution of Jains” is mentioned by Romila Thapar: “The Shaivite saint Jnana Sambandar is attributed with having converted the Pandya ruler from Jainism to Shaivism, whereupon it is said that 8,000 Jainas were impaled by the king.” To this, Sita Ram Goel points out that she omits crucial details: that this king, Arikesari Parankusa Maravarman, is also described as having first persecuted Shaivas, when he himself was a Jain; that Sambandar vanquished the Jainas not in battle but in debate, which was the occasion for the king to convert from Jainism to Shaivism (wagers in which the second or a third party promises to convert if you win the debate are not uncommon in India’s religious literature); and that Sambandar had escaped Jain attempts to kill him. This Shaiva-Jaina conflict was clearly not a one-way affair, and as per the very tradition invoked by Prof. Thapar, Jains themselves had been the aggressors.
It is even a matter of debate whether this persecution has occurred at all. Nilakanth Shastri, in his unchallenged History of South India, writes about it: “This, however, is little more than an unpleasant legend and cannot be treated as history.” Admittedly, this sounds like Percival Spear’s statement that Aurangzeb’s persecutions are “little more than a hostile legend”: a sweeping denial of a well-attested persecution. However, Mr. Spear’s contention is amply disproves by contemporary documents including firmans (royal decrees) and eye-witness accounts, and by the archaeological record, e.g. the destruction of the Kashi Vishvanath temple in Varanasi by Aurangzeb is attested by the temple remains incorporated in the Gyanvapi mosque built on its site. Such evidence has not been offered in the case of Jnana Sambandar at all. On the contrary: “Interestingly, the persecution of Jains in the Pandya country finds mention only in Shaiva literature, and is not corroborated by Jain literature of the same or subsequent period.”
On the other hand, the historicity of the Jain-Shaiva conflict in general is confirmed by Shaiva references to more cases of Jain aggression. Dr. Usha Sivapriya, before duly quoting classical Tamil sources, argues that the literatures posterior to Manikkavasaghar (an ancient Tamil sage, author of Thiruvasagham) “had plenty of reference to the nature, torture and terrorism of Jaina missionaries and rulers in Tamil kingdom”. It all started with the invasion by Kharavela, king of Kalinga, at the turn of the Christian era: “Kharavela defeated the Tamil kings headed by Pandiyans and captured Madhurai. The Kalinga or Vadugha king enforced Jaina rule in Tamil kingdom. People were forcibly converted at knifepoint, temples were demolished or locked down, devotees were tortured and killed.”
And it continued intermittently for centuries under Pandya and Pallava rule: “When the Digambara Jaina missionaries had failed in converting the masses, they tried to torture and kill them. (…) After failing in the attempt of converting Pandiyans the Digambara Jains tried to kill the Pandiyan Kings through various means, by sending a dangerous snake, wild bull and mad elephant.”
Dr. Sivapriya links the advent of Jainism in Tamil Nadu with an episode of conquest by non-Tamils. Goel adds: “The persecution of Jains in the Pandya country by some Shaivas had nothing to do with Shaivism as such, but was an expression of a nationalist conflict which I will relate shortly. What I want to point out first is that most of the royal dynasties which ruled in India after the breakdown of the Gupta Empire and before the advent of Islamic invaders, were Shaiva (…). The Jains are known to have flourished everywhere; not a single instance of the Jains being persecuted under any of these dynasties is known. (…) M. Arunachalam, in a monograph published eight years before Professor Thapar delivered the lectures which comprise her pamphlet (…) has proved conclusively, with the help of epigraphic and literary evidence, that the Kalabhara invaders from Karnataka had occupied Tamil Nadu for 300 years (between AD 250 and 550), and that they subscribed to the Digambara sect of Jainism.”
So, this is where “nationalist” resentment against the conquerors came to coincide with resentment against Jainism: “It so happened that some of the Kalabhara princes were guided by a few narrow-minded Jain ascetics, and inflicted injuries on some Shaiva and Vaishnava saints and places of worship. They also took away the agrahâras which Brahmanas had enjoyed in earlier times. And a reaction set in when the Kalabharas were overthrown. The new rulers who rose subscribed to Shaivism. It was then that the Jains were persecuted in some places, and some Jain places of worship were taken over by the Shaivas under the plea that these were Shaiva places in the earlier period.”
In such cases, “Professor Thapar does not mention the Jain high-handedness which had preceded. (… ) Professor Thapar should have mentioned the persecution of Shaivas practised earlier by the Pandya king who was a Jain to start with, and who later on converted to Shaivism and persecuted the Jains. This is another case of suppressio verb suggestio falsi practised very often by her school.”
To clinch the issue and confirm that the Pandya incident of persecution of Jains is atypical and disconnected from Hindu doctrines, Goel adds: “But the reaction was confined to the Pandya country. Jainism continued to flourish in northern Tamil Nadu which also had been invaded by the Kalabharas, where also the Shaivas and Vaishnavas had been molested by the Jains, and where also the Shaivas had come to power once again. It is significant that though Buddhists also invite invectives in the same Shaiva literature, no instance of Buddhists being persecuted is recorded. That was because Buddhists had never harmed the Shaivas. It is also significant that the Vaishnavas of Tamil Nadu show no bitterness against the Jains though they had also suffered under Kalabhara rule.”
And even if all the claims of a Hindu persecution of Jains had been true, they would still not prove the non-Hindu character of Jainism. From the history of Christianity, Islam and Communism, great persecutors of outsiders to their own doctrines, we know numerous instances where the worst invective and the choicest tortures were reserved for alleged heretics within their own fold.
Not much is left of the allegation of “Hindu persecution of Jains”, and in that light, Goel’s conclusion must be considered relatively modest: “It is nobody’s case that there was never any conflict between the sects and sub-sects of Sanatana Dharma. Some instances of persecution were indeed there. Our plea is that they should be seen in a proper perspective, and not exaggerated in order to whitewash or counterbalance the record of Islamic intolerance. Firstly, the instances are few and far between when compared to those listed in Muslim annals. Secondly, those instances are spread over several millennia (…) Thirdly, none of those instances were inspired by a theology (…) Fourthly, Jains were not always the victims of persecution; they were persecutors as well once in a while. Lastly, no king or commander or saint who showed intolerance has been a Hindu hero, while Islam has hailed as heroes only those characters who excelled in intolerance.”}
Graphically depicted on many sculptures on the walls of the temple of Tivatur in North Arcot about any person neither proves anything about prosecution nor gives a direct reliable link to Jain prosecution. Because everything which is depicted in Hindu temples can not be taken as historical facts. Depiction in Hindu temples are more likely metaphor or philosophical.
Strong Historical Facts about Secularism of Cola and Pandya Dynasty
Historian says that the cholas were secular and patronized equally all religions and sub-sects with in the same religion. Pandyas were also favored Jainism.
Raja Raja Chola 1 patronized Buddhists and provided for construction of the chudamani Vihar in Nagapattanam.
Dr Hultzsch the great epigraphist says during chola dynasty Jaina and Buddhist authors flourished as well. Jivaka-chintamani by tirutakkatevar and sulamani by tolamol; are among notable by non Hindu authors.
Munigiri (jaina temple): This is situated at Karande village 15 km. away from Kancipuram. Here a grand and attractive icon of Tirthankara Kunthunatha is installed. This place was an important centre for the meditational practices for Jain Saints in the 3rd century A.D. Rajaraja Chola, Rajendra Chola and many other kings gave handsome gifts to this temple. Sri Krsnadevaraya and Ramadevaraya of Vijaynagar Empire gifted lands to this tirtha. This was a very prosperous and grand pilgrimage centre till 13 century A.D.
Jingiri (Jaina temple): This pilgrimage centre is situated on a hill near Thirunarunkonde village. In this temple, grand statues of Tirthankara Parsvanatha and Candraprabhu are installed. There are three beautiful towers in this temple, which are the beautiful specimens of chola architecture. Here we find caves and stone beds where the Jain Saints had stayed and done penances. These are as old as the 3rd to 5th centuries A.D. From the inscriptions it is found the successors of Rajaraja Chola I, Rajendra Chola I, Kulottungachola I, Pandyas and Vijaynagar Kings had helped in the development of this area. Princess Kundave, the sister of a Chola king, built a water tank here which is still in existence. On the towers, there are many images of gods and goddesses which are very attractive.
Puzhal (Jaina temple): This is an ancient and popular tirtha of Tamilnadu. This tirtha is just 2 km. from Red Hills village and 15 km. from Madras. Here a very grand image of the first Tirthankar Lord Rsabhadeva is installed. A grand statue of Lord Parsvanatha is also installed here. This tirtha is 1500 years old. King Koorumbar of Chola dynasty constructed the temple.
Jinakanchi (Jaina temple)-King Mahendra Varman and kulottung Chola I gave valuable gifts to this temple. About 600 years ago Mr. Irrugoppa . Dandanayaka, who was a minister of Vijayanagar empire Harihar, constructed a large Mandapam with 20 pillars, this place was sanctified by Acarya Vamana who was a guru of Pallava Kings. Here we can find the foot prints of Puspasena who was a disciple of Acarya Vamana.
Hindu Intellectual and Muslim intellectual
There are various traditions according to various interpretations in Hinduism. One can think of Sanatan Dharma as a wonderful seed planted in the earth, out of which has blossomed a tree with deep roots, great branches, leaves, flowers, and fruits.Sectirian fundamentalism within Hindu sects was minor and it was limited in literal and intellectual field. But Hindu sectarian fundamentalism never turned out to sectarian dispute unlike intense and fearece Islamic sectarian disputes (Shia & Sunni).
Donal Smith says “The Hindu State of ancient medieval, or modern times was not narrowly sectarian state in any sense; patronage was frequently extended simultaneously to various sects and religions.” (Donald Eugene Smith, The religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism)
Our readers can get actual taste of level of intellectual poverty in our fanatical anti-hindu writers. Some of them now becoming intense angry against a Hindu website called “Agniveer” but till now I do not find any anti-islamic article in their site. Well, calling Sri Dr Zakir Naik’s question on Almighty God Shiva logical, so called comparative religion scholars shows their deep hatred, intolerance and malice for Hindus and Hinduism.
So, let’s have an unbiased inspection to give proper light in this matter. Zakir naik is an Indian public speaker on the subject of Islam and comparative religion. He says Islam is religion of reason and logic. But in media he is popular not or preaching but for controversial remarks. Sri Dr Zakir Naik is banned from two most secular countries England and Canada for his non-secular preaching. India has banned his TV channel. Even not all Muslims are admired of Sri Zakir Naik. Darul ifta, India’s foremost Islamic center of theological learning issued a formal fatwa against him.
“Ghair Muqallid and his knowledge are not deep. Therefore, he is not reliable and Muslims should not avoid listening to him.”
Another fatwa says
“We know that he is an agent of Ghair Muqallideen, away from knowledge and wisdom, spreading mischievous things and misguiding simple Muslims to wrong paths.”
Why are scholarly Muslims so opposed to this logical preacher who claims to preach “peace” and “Islam”? Why did secular countries ban this peace loving TV preacher? Why Sri Zakir Naik is so popular to uneducated masses yet to despise by educated scholars? Probably so called comparative religious scholars are very much devoted to him that is why his half-truths, out-of-context passages and false statistics seem so logical.
Sri Zakir Naik asks “if your BHAAWAN cannot recognize his own son, lord Ganesha, How will he recognize me if I fall into any difficulty.”
One can also ask such questions about “Allah-Adam-Eve and Satan” and their scene in garden. So any one can ask such question that does not mean they are correct or intellectual. So, when faced with this charge, some scholars try to point out on Dayanad Saraswati.
Dayanad Saraswati is remembered as a Hindu spiritual leader and social reformer of the 19th century. He is famous in Hindu society because when Hinduism was divided between the various schools of philosophy and theology, Sami Dayanad went straight back to the Vedas. He is widely known in Indian history as a religious social reformer who preached against many social evils like caste system, untouchability, marriage and forced widowhood.
Swami Dayananda Saraswati was a fire preacher but his “preaching against any religion” is barely remembered in Hindu society. He was only an intellectual answer to European imperialism and Islamic extreminism. It was “abrahamic intolerance” who was responsible for rise of bold intellectual class headed by Dayananda Saraswati. But his literal works seems more alive in non-Hindu societies instead of Hindu clan. Hindu society has praised Dayananda as a great social reformer, not as an anti-abrahamic intellectual. Dayanada saraswati even wrote against many Hindu scriptures as well as against abrahamic scriptures but Hindus ignores them for greater purpose. He is not representator of entire Hinduism, he used to only a leader of small but learned sect called arya samaj. Majority of Hindus are still unknown about his anti-abrahamic literal works (Like me, I came to know about Satyartha-Prakash from Muslim sites not from any Hindu sites) and can reject If he/she finds it wrong.
Swami Dayanada Saraswati did noting wrong by condemning idol worship which is banned in Hindu Scriptures. It is wrong perception of Abrahamic thinkers that Hindus do idol worship. Hindus don’t do idol worship. Hindus do Deity worship which is authorized by the Almighty God.
Conclusion
It is says that when you wear blue spake everything seems you blue. Like this for racist and non-secular writers, everything in this earth is event of racism. Well, their eyes and mental order is faulty not the world. Hindus are people who have understood that to contribute towards a more peaceful society. We must first solve the problem of violence in our own hearts. So, it’s not surprising that thousands of people from all walks of life become Hindu (Vaishnava, sakta, shaiva). People who those have raised in an isolated societies and stiff cultural boundaries often feel anxiety for broad outside world. They evaluate vast world through their narrow frame and miscalculate everything. So, for these people we would suggest to practice god conscious path (Hinduism) and meditation. Believing in God or following His words are not necessary, necessity is True Supreme God Realization. Hinduism is meant for understanding the position of the Soul and its relationship with God. Meditation is for solidify this divine relationship which establish peace of mind and true happiness. Traditionally Hinduism is extremely tolerant theologically and generally so in practice. Ekam Satya Viprah Bahuda Vadanti (Truth is one; people call it in many names). As above we have established truth by slaying ignorance. It is evident from the above the inherent nature of Hinduism supports the attitude of religious tolerance. Separating of religion from the state and the confinement of religion to ecclesiastical sphere as against its taking on a militant theocratic form. This makes Hinduism tolerant towards all. The spirit of co-existence and tolerance has been core characteristics of Hinduism from the ancient time.
Sri Chinmoy says
“May there be peace in Heaven. There be peace in the sky. May there be peace on earth. there be peace in the water. May there be peace in the plants. May there be peace in the trees. May there be peace in the gods. May there be peace in Brahma. May there be peace in all.”
HINDUISM1OM1 