Śramaṇa
In Indian religions and philosophies, a śramaṇa or samaṇa, sometimes anglicised as shramana, is a person "who labours, toils, or exerts themselves for some higher or religious purpose" or a "seeker, or ascetic, one who performs acts of austerity".
In the early Vedic texts, the term is an epithet for the great rishi sages in association with their ritualistic exertion. However, it has since come to refer to a broad class of spiritual movements originally comprising wandering ascetics from ancient India—collectively called the Śramaṇa tradition, Shramanic tradition, or occasionally Shramanism—historically parallel to but separate from movements that upheld the authority of Vedic scripture like the early Vedic religion and Brahmanism, as well as their Hindu successor movements. The Śramaṇa tradition includes Jainism, Buddhism, and others such as the Ājīvika, Ajñana, and Cārvāka, while definitively excluding Hinduism. The tradition's name comes from the semantic narrowing of the term śramaṇa to mean a religious individual who specifically rejects the authority of the Vedas; however, the word did not hold this connotation until certain post-Vedic texts considered canonical by Buddhists and Jains. In the Indian philosophical tradition, the terms āstika versus nāstika largely equate to this distinction between Vedic versus non-Vedic belief systems.
The Śramaṇa tradition became popular in the circles of mendicants from greater Magadha who developed yogic practices, and they also developed concepts popular in all major Indian religions such as saṃsāra and moksha. Śramaṇa schools of thought have a diverse range of beliefs, ranging from accepting or denying the existence of the soul, believing or disbelieving in free will, following particular dress guidelines or going completely nude in daily social life, and strict vegetarianism and prohibitions on violence or permissibility of meat-eating and violence.
Etymology and origin
According to Olivelle and Crangle, the earliest known explicit use of the term "śramaṇa" is found in section 2.7 of the Taittiriya Aranyaka, a layer within the Yajurveda. It mentions śramaṇa Rishis and celibate Rishis.According to Jaini, only two references to the word "śramaṇa" are found in the Vedic literature, one in verse 4.3.22 of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. It refers to a śramaṇa as belonging to a class of mendicant, but it is not clear if this was a member of a non-Vedic order as described in the much later Pali-canon.
The word "śramaṇa" is postulated to be derived from the verbal root , meaning "to exert effort, labor or to perform austerity". The history of wandering monks in ancient India is partly untraceable. The term 'parivrajaka' was perhaps applicable to all the peripatetic monks of India, such as those found in Buddhism, Jainism and Brahmanism.
The Śramaṇa tradition refers collectively to a variety of renunciate ascetic traditions from the middle of the 1st millennium BCE. The śramaṇas were individual, experiential and free-form traditions. The term "śramaṇas" is used sometimes to contrast them with "Brahmins" in terms of their religious models. However, in the early texts, some pre-dating 3rd-century BCE ruler Ashoka, the Brahmana and śramaṇa are neither distinct nor opposed. The distinction, according to Olivelle, in later Indian literature "may have been a later semantic development possibly influenced by the appropriation of the latter term by Buddhism and Jainism". Part of the Śramaṇa tradition retained their distinct identity from Hinduism by rejecting the epistemic authority of the Vedas, while another part of the Śramaṇa tradition synthesized with Hinduism as one stage in the Ashrama dharma, that is as renunciate sannyasins.
Buddhist commentaries associate the word's etymology with the quieting of evil as in the following phrase from the 3rd century BCE Dhammapada, verse 265: samitattā pāpānaŋ ʻsamaṇoʼ ti pavuccati.
The first usage of the term śramaṇa in Jain literature is found in the earliest Jain texts, the Sutrakritanga, composed after the 2nd century BCE, and the Ācārāṅga Sūtra, which may have originated as an oral tradition after Mahavira's death but was principally compiled and heavily edited in its current form by Acharya Devardhigani Kshamashraman, c. 454 CE. According to Johannes Bronkhorst:
Mainly on linguistic grounds, it has been argued that the Ācārāṅga Sūtra, the Sūtrakṛtāṅga Sūtra, and the Uttarādhyayana Sūtra are among the oldest texts in the canon. This does not guarantee that they actually date from the time of Mahāvīra, nor even from the centuries immediately following his death, nor does it guarantee that all parts of these texts were composed simultaneously.
The term śramaṇa is also found in the earliest Digambara Jain text, Mulachara, composed around 150 CE. Digambaras maintain that the original Ācārāṅga Sūtra is lost, and Mulachara is the closest to the original teachings of Mahavira.
Pali samaṇa has been suggested as the ultimate origin of the word Evenki сама̄н "shaman", possibly via Middle Chinese or Tocharian B; however, the etymology of this word, which is also found in other Tungusic languages, is controversial.
History
Several śramaṇa movements are known to have existed in India before the 6th century BCE, and these influenced both the āstika and nāstika traditions of Indian philosophy. Martin Wiltshire states that the Śramaṇa tradition evolved in India over two phases, namely Paccekabuddha and Savaka phases, the former being the tradition of individual ascetic and latter of disciples, and that Buddhism and Jainism ultimately emerged from these as sectarian manifestations. These traditions drew upon already established Brahmanical concepts, states Wiltshire, to communicate their own distinct doctrines. Reginald Ray concurs that śramaṇa movements already existed and were established traditions in pre-6th century BCE India, but disagrees with Wiltshire that they were nonsectarian before the arrival of Buddha.According to the Jain Agamas and the Buddhist Pāli Canon, there were other śramaṇa leaders at the time of Buddha. In the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta, a śramaṇa named Subhadda mentions:
Relationship with Vedism
The traditional view of scholars in the field, represented for example by Govind Chandra Pande in his 1957 study on the origins of Buddhism, is that Śramaṇa began as a "distinct and separate cultural and religious" tradition from Vedic religion. However, this claim is disputed by several Indologists and Sanskrit scholars such as Patrick Olivelle.Patrick Olivelle, a professor of Indology and known for his translations of major ancient Sanskrit works, states in his 1993 study that contrary to some representations, the original Śramaṇa tradition was part of the Vedic one. He writes,
According to Olivelle, and other scholars such as Edward Crangle, the concept of Śramaṇa exists in the early Brahmanical literature. The term is used in an adjectival sense for sages who lived a special way of life that the Vedic culture considered extraordinary. However, Vedic literature does not provide details of that life. The term did not imply any opposition to either Brahmins or householders. In all likelihood, states Olivelle, during the Vedic era, neither did the śramaṇa concept refer to an identifiable class nor to ascetic groups as it does in later Indian literature.
The concept of renunciation and monk-like lifestyle is found in Vedic literature, with terms such as yatis, rishis, and śramaṇas. The Vedic literature from pre-1000 BCE era, mentions Muni. Rig Veda, for example, in Book 10 Chapter 136, mentions mendicants as those with kēśin and mala clothes engaged in the affairs of mananat.
The hymn uses the term vātaraśana which means "girdled with wind". Some scholars have interpreted this to mean "sky-clad, naked monk" and therefore a synonym for Digambara. However, other scholars state that this could not be the correct interpretation because it is inconsistent with the words that immediately follow, "wearing soil-hued garments". The context likely means that the poet is describing the "munis" as moving like the wind, their garments pressed by the wind. According to Olivelle, it is unlikely that the vātaraśana implies a class within the Vedic context.
The Vedic society, states Olivelle, contained many people whose roots were non-Aryan who must have influenced the Aryan classes. However, it is difficult to identify and isolate these influences, in part because the vedic culture not only developed from influences but also from its inner dynamism and socio-economic developments.
According to Indian anthropologist Ramaprasad Chanda the origins of Sramanism back to pre-Vedic and pre-Aryan cultures, particularly those practicing magic. He posited that the practice of asceticism could be linked to the initiatory phases of seclusion and abstinence observed by shamans.
According to Bronkhorst, the śramaṇa culture arose in "Greater Magadha," which was Indo-Aryan, but not Vedic. In this culture, Kshatriyas were placed higher than Brahmins, and it rejected Vedic authority and rituals.
Pre-Buddhist śrāmana schools in Buddhist texts
Pande attributes the origin of Buddhism, not entirely to the Buddha, but to a "great religious ferment" towards the end of the Vedic period when the Brahmanic and Shramanic traditions intermingled.The Buddhist text of the Samaññaphala Sutta identifies six pre-Buddhist śrāmana schools, identifying them by their leader. These six schools are represented in the text to have diverse philosophies, which according to Padmanabh Jaini, may be "a biased picture and does not give a true picture" of the shramanic schools rivaling with Buddhism,
- The Purana Kassapa śrāmana school: believed in antinomian ethics. This ancient school asserted that there are no moral laws, nothing is moral or immoral, there is neither virtue nor sin.
- The Makkhali Gosala śrāmana school: believed in fatalism and determinism that everything is the consequence of nature and its laws. This school denied that there is free will, but believed that soul exists. Everything has its own individual nature, based on how one is constituted from elements. Karma and consequences are not due to free will, cannot be altered, everything is pre-determined, because of and including one's composition.
- The Ajita Kesakambali śrāmana movement: believed in materialism. Denied that there is an after-life, any samsara, any karma, or any fruit of good or evil deeds. Everything including humans are composed of elemental matter, and when one dies one returns to those elements.
- The Pakudha Kaccayana śrāmana movement: believed in atomism. Denied that there is a creator, knower. Believed that everything is made of seven basic building blocks which are eternal, neither created nor caused to be created. These seven blocks included earth, water, fire, air, happiness, pain and soul. All actions, including death is mere re-arrangement and interpenetration of one set of substances into another set of substances.
- The Mahavira or śrāmana school: believed in fourfold restraint, avoidance of all evil.
- The Sanjaya Belatthiputta śrāmana movement: believed in absolute agnosticism. Refused to have any opinion either way about existence of or non-existence of after-life, karma, good, evil, free will, creator, soul, or other topics.