Saturday, June 5, 2010

Jain or Baniya : What is your identity?

-Mahavir Sanglikar

Most of the Jains know that the great Saman Mahaveer appointed 11 Chief disciples to promote his teachings. All of the chief disciples were from Bramhin and Kshatriya community. Before him, the chief disciples of Saman Parshwnath also were from above two communities. All the chief dispels, who are known as Gandhars, were great scholars.

Now the question arises that why Parshwanath and Mahaveer were unable to find a single person from Baniya (Merchant) community? The only answer to this question is that these great Samans wanted genius scholars, and not the traders.

Parshwanath and Mahaveer themselves were born in warrior communities. If they were born in merchants, they would have appointed Baniyas on the post, that too by auctioning these posts.

Warrior communities of India gave Teerthankars, great Ascetics and Emperors/ Kings, Brahmins gave great Acharyas and scholars, and even Shudras gave great Acharyas and Emperors/kings to Jain community. What was the contribution of Baniyas? They just created idols of the Teerthankars and started to put ornaments on the idols. They started auctions in Jain temples. They made religion a business! All this is the biggest insult of Jainism.

Have you seen any Rishabh, Krishna, Mahavir, Buddha or Jesus born in a merchant community? Have you seen any Chandragupt, Kumarpal, Maharana Pratap or Shivaji born in merchants? Have you seen any Aryabhat, Mahaviracharya, Bhaskaracharya, Newton or Einstein born in merchant community?

Osho has said in one of his book that the worst thing happened with Jainism was that this great religion became victim of Baniyas.

If you are a Jain and call yourself as a Baniya, it is a very sad and shameful thing. Jainism has never supported the Vedic idea of Varna (class) system. Even if you are influenced by Varna system and call yourself as a Baniya, remember that you are on 3rd position (third class). Brahmins and Kshatriyas are superior to you. You are just one step ahead of Shudras, but nearer to Shudras. Moreover, you are not loyal to your Jain identity and you want to hide it. But you should hide Baniya identity, not the Jain identity as Jain identity is superior to any other identity.

Remember that traders are the least respected people in Indian community.

You should remember that the greatest Jain personalities to whom you worship or respect, are not merchants.

Now it is upon you, which identity you will prefer. Jain or Baniya?

4 comments:

  1. Great insight in abv txt.

    two ques bothering me:
    - why do v(jains) hv gotras?
    - Why some mataji's n maharaj ji's ask for our gotra before accepting 'ahaar' from our hands ? (i remember that coz mom was denied to offer ahaar once, as she belonged to 'mangal gotra' )

    ReplyDelete
  2. your posts are really offensive and i would try telling things in a nicer way. I am an aerospace engineer myself but you cannot degrade traders. not every one is intelligent like you are. people need a way of earning and have to go the business way if they are not good at education.
    jainism teaches all of us to treat every one with respect and be peaceful. your comments would create hatred among jains

    ReplyDelete
  3. jainisiamj have no belive in vedic cast systme.every body even trinch can adopt jain religion.First and last thing is sambkataba true knowledge on dev guru and /dharam deliverd by sarbhgya.Jain relgion donot belive in veda .It may possible that some mithattavi may present this pure religion in wrong way

    ReplyDelete
  4. we made a thinking about a community only by seeing some people of that community
    this is one of the worst thing d one can do

    it is not rite


    all baniyas r not alike
    there r two side of a coin similarly all mambers of a community r not good. some are great but some are not

    ReplyDelete

Followers