Brahmins in Jain memory

Illustration/Devdutt Pattanaik

In the Brahminical tradition, the Brahmin stands at the apex of creation, born from the mouth of Prajapati, custodian of the sacred fire by divine right. Jainism offers a different account entirely. It does not deny the Brahmin's existence; it explains his origins. It explains his origins. And in doing so, it places him firmly below the Tirthankara and the Kshatriya.

The story begins at Mount Ashtapada. When Lord Rishabha, the first Tirthankara, attained liberation along with ten thousand monks, the gods prepared three funeral pyres. Each was distinct in shape and purpose. A round pyre facing east received the body of Rishabha himself. A triangular pyre facing south held the monks of the Ikshvaku lineage, his sons and grandsons. A rectangular pyre facing west received all remaining monks. The Agnikumara gods lit the flames. The Vayukumara gods fanned them. When the cremation was complete and the rain gods had extinguished what remained, certain laymen approached the three sacred pits and took the fire home. These men became the first Brahmanas, the first Agnihotrin. They did not inherit the sacred fire from Brahma. They collected embers from a cremation ground. This became the three Vedic fires.

The origin of the Brahmin caste follows a separate but equally instructive story. Rishabha, as the first king of the Karmabhumi, organized society into Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras, categories based on occupation and conduct rather than birth. The Brahmin came later, through an act of his son Bharata, whose kingdom was known as Bharat-varsha (ie, India).

Wishing to identify the most spiritually advanced among the laity, Bharata spread fresh green grass across the palace floors and invited the citizens in. Those who were genuinely committed to right faith would not enter. They would not step on living organisms. They would not commit himsa even for a royal audience. Bharata marked these individuals with his Kakini jewel and called them Mahana, meaning ‘do not kill'. In time, Mahana became Brahmin. The three threads Bharata gave them represented not the three Vedas but the three jewels of Jainism: right faith, right knowledge, right conduct.

The Jinas themselves are always born into warrior families. When the gods transferred Mahavira's embryo from a Brahmin womb to a Kshatriya one, they were making a doctrinal statement. A Tirthankara is a king before he is a renunciant. The warrior class carries the liberation tradition.

The Jain accounts, from Jinasena in the ninth century to Hemacandra in the twelfth, function as a systematic counter-narrative. They do not argue that Brahmins are fraudulent. They argue that Brahmins are derivative. Their fire came from a Jain cremation. Their sacred thread came from a Jain emperor. Their defining virtue was borrowed from Jain ethics. The tradition is careful, even respectful, in its appropriation. But the hierarchy is unmistakable. In Jain memory, the Brahmin did not create civilization. He was created by it, and by a civilization whose first and greatest figures wore the Kshatriya mark.

Food produced by non-killing (ahimsa) established the doctrine of purity, hence impurity, pollution and eventually caste hierarchy. The Brahmin embraced this ideology. Vedic rituals, that involved animal slaughter, are facts now vehemently denied. This link between ahimsa and purity did not exist prior to the rise of Jain doctrine and today shapes much of Hindu thought. Animal fat was offered in Vedic rituals. But in Hindu temples, the gods are kept pure by being offered strictly vegetarian food (with ghee) with ginger or garlic, which would meet the approval of Jain monks.

The author writes and lectures on the relevance of mythology in modern times. Reach him at devdutt.pattanaik@mid-day.com