Shramana - Śramaṇa Movement

Śramaṇa Movement

The Views of Six Samana in the Pali Canon (based on the Sāmaññaphala Sutta1)
Question: "Is it possible to point out the fruit of the contemplative life, visible in the here and now?"1
samaṇa	view (diṭṭhi)
Pūraṇa Kassapa	Amoralism: denies any reward or punishment for either good or bad deeds.
Makkhali Gosāla	Fatalism: we are powerless; suffering is pre-destined.
Ajita Kesakambalī	Materialism: with death, all is annihilated.
Pakudha Kaccāyana	Eternalism: Matter, pleasure, pain and the soul are eternal and do not interact.
Nigaṇṭha Nātaputta	Restraint: be endowed with, cleansed by and suffused with the avoidance of all evil.2
Sañjaya Belaṭṭhaputta	Agnosticism: "I don't think so. I don't think in that way or otherwise. I don't think not or not not."

There are only two references to the word Sramana in vedic literature. One is in Brihadaranyaka Upanishad where it is placed next to the term 'tapasa', indicating that the Shramana like the tapasa was a class of mendicants. It has been argued renunciation was not uncommon to the Vedic society, with Yatis, Munis, Shramanas quoted amongst earliest renouncers. In the pastoral cultures of Vedic people, the renouncer Munis and Yatis were looked down upon. The renouncers meditated upon death, link between births and death conditioned by attachment to desire. These themes surface in vedic literature for the first time in the Upanishads. After passing through henotheism and pantheism, the anthropomorphism of Vedas entered the period of monism in the Upanishadic period.

It is in the Upanishadic period that theories identifiable with Shramanas come in direct contact with brahmanical ideals. According to Ananda Guruge, a renowned Buddhist leader, the Sramana movement impacted Vedic education through the Upanishads, with debate and discussion replacing parrot-like repetition of the Vedas. Many Upanishads compile contradictory positions where the favorite style of debate is to pose questions until the other cannot answer. The infinite regress notwithstanding, upanishadic arguments do not involve finding logical contradictions in opposing doctrines. The heterogenous nature of Upanishads shows infusions of both social and philosophical elements, pointing to evolution of new doctrines from non-brahmanical sources. While the Upanishadic doctrines of Brahman and Atman can be traced back to the Vedas and Brahmanas, the doctrines of Transmigration (as punarjanma), Karma (as action), and Emancipation (as moksha) do not follow with consistency from vedic traditions, and are fundamental to the Shramana religions.

Several śramaṇa movements are known to have existed in India, even before the 6th century BCE, and these influenced both the Astika and the Nastika traditions of Indian philosophy. It was as a Shramana that the Buddha left his father's palace and practised austerities. The Brahmajāla Sutta mentions many śramaṇas with whom Buddha disagreed. Some scholars opine Sramanas of Jaina tradition were widespread in the Indus Valley, with the relics of Indus Valley civilization representing Jaina culture, like the standing nude male figures (Jaina Kayotsarga), idols in Padmasana and images with serpent-heads, and the Bull symbol of Vrshabadeva. However, other scholars opine the Sramana cultures arose and flourished in the Gangetic areas, rather than the Indus Valley. Additionally, some scholars opine the term Shramana appears in texts of the Brahmanas as a religious order other than the Vedic (i.e., Astika) traditions,. The Shramana tradition of the Jaina religion is considered the oldest of the non-Aryan group, as an independent pre-Buddhist religion (Bhaskar, 1972), and is suggested to have existed before the Brahmin cult. From rock edicts, it is found that both Brahmans as well as Shramana Buddhist ascetics enjoyed equal sanctity.

Though Shramana traditions are associated with ascetism, some shramana traditions were, in fact, peculiar as materialists, in the sense they preached a worldly existence and carried denunciation of brahmanical orthodoxy to the extreme. The Shramana traditions included a range of beliefs, such as the Cārvākas, who on one end of the spectrum lived a luxurious life, to the Jainas, who on the other hand, developed a theory of extreme self-mortification. Some Shramanas were openly critical of the sacrificial traditions of the Brahmins and the concepts of Karma, claiming them to be simply a swindle --

'Don't believe in them - when you're dead, you're dead. All their talk of Karman is nonsense. One of the materialists said, 'If a man went north of the Ganges and murdered, and tortured, and stole, and plundered and set buildings on fire, he would make no bad Karman. If another man went south of the Ganges and gave in charity, and helped the weak and healed the sick, he would make no good Karman. You live as a combination of the four elements, but when you die, everything is finished. So borrow money and live as happily as you can, for when you're dead, they can't pursue you.'

The Cārvāka Lokayatas asserted a purely naturalist position, claiming the world consists of merely working out the elements.

Yet another conflict can be found in the works of Dharmakirti, the eminent 7th-century CE Buddhist logician from Nalanda:

vedapramanyam kasyacit kartrvadah/ snane dharmeccha jativadavalepah// santaparambhah papahanaya ceti/ dhvastaprajnanam pancalirigani jadye
The unquestioned authority of the vedas; the belief in a world-creator; the quest for purification through ritual bathings; the arrogant division into castes; the practice of mortification to atone for sin; - these five are the marks of the crass stupidity of witless men.

While authority of vedas, belief in a creator, path of ritualism and social system of heredity ranks, made up the cornerstones of brahminal schools, the path of asceticism was the main characteristic of all the heterodox schools collectively called the Shramanas.

It was in Shramana traditions that concepts of Karma and Samsara became central themes of debate., and it has been suggested that this may have been introduced into the mainstream by Kshatriyas. In Jainism, Karma is based on materialist element philosophy, where Karma is the fruit of one's action conceived as material particles which stick to a soul and keep it away from natural omniscience. The Buddha conceived Karma as a chain of causality leading to attachment of the material world and hence to rebirth. The Ajivikas of Makkhali Ghosa were a third successful movement during this time. They were fatalists and elevated Karma as inescapable fate, where a person's life goes through a chain of consequences and rebirths until it reaches its end. Some famous philosophers of that time, such as Pakkudha Kaccayana and Purana Kashyapa, denied the existence of Karma. It was indeed the creative Shramana generations of the 500 to 400 BCE, in whom Karma doctrine became the centre of attention, who set far-reaching consequences for lifestyle and thought among Indians.

In later periods, the Jains migrated towards the West and South of India and established themselves as prosperous communities in the Chalukya and Rashtrakuta courts. The Digambaras in the South could not preach against social ranks at the cost of their survival. It was suicidal for them to follow the brahmanical law-books. Therefore in the 8th century CE, Jinasena produced Jain law books in the guise of Puranas glorifying Jain Thirthankaras and declaring Varnas were not of Brahmanical origin but was promulgated by the first of the twenty-four Tirthankaras, Vrsabha, at the beginning of the present kalpa. Vrashabha prescribed Jain rites for birth, marriage, death and instituted a class of Jain-brahmans.