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JAINISM viduality. No longer is there felt the otherwise universal compulsion to keep on wearing the mask of some bewildered personality, the mask of man, beast, tortured soul, or god.
The Jaina Doctrine of Release
THE TRANSCENDENTAI, wisdom that confers, and is identical with, release from the round of rebirths is regarded as a secret doctrine in the Brāhmanic tradition, into which it was introduced as a new disclosure in the comparatively late period of the Upanişads. The Āryan sages of the Vedic Age knew nothing of transmigration; nor was the doctrinc alluded to in the complete course of orthodox Vedic studies that was communicated centuries later by the Brāhman sage Āruņi to his son śvetaketu.78 The idea of the sorrowful round really belongs to the non-Aryan, aboriginal inheritance of those noble clans that in Mahāvīra's and the Buddha's time were challenging the somewhat narrow views of Brāhman orthodoxy; and it was imparted freely to spiritually qualified Brāhmans when those haughty conquerors finally condescended 10 ask for it. For the wisdom of the non-Aryan sages had never been exclusive in quite the same way as that of the Vedic Brāhmans. The Jaina, Buddhist, and other related heterodox Indian teachings 79 are not kept secret like the powerful formulae of the Brāhman families. They are regarded as belonging to all--the
78 Chandogya Upanisad 6; cf. infra, pp. 335-337.
70 For the meaning of the terms "orthodox" and "heterodox" in this context, cf. supra, p. 60, Editor's note.
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