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LORD MAHĀVĪRA AND THE ANYATİRTHIKAS
What we gather from Mahāvīra's explanation in the first of the two texts referred to only bears on the corporeal inanimate character of matter and the living incorporeal essence of the soul as a basis for karmic retribution.
In conclusion I would like to state, that the great diversity of topics discussed in the anyatirthika texts is illustrative both of Mahāvīra's personality as a thinker and a teacher, and of that wonderful time of creative ferment. in religion and philosophy that was his. It would seem that Mahāvīra, more than anyone around him, even more than the Buddha, was inspired by the spiritual unrest and eagerness of his day. Speaking of the Buddha, and probably comparing him with the Jina, Frauwallner, in his History of Indian Philosophy, expressed the opinion that 'his (the Buddha's) contribution to the enlargement of the range of philosophical ideas in his time was a rather small one'1. A severe verdict indeed, which, however, is soundly based on the Buddha's well-known stern refusal to consider a great many questions that occupied his contemporaries. Because of his systematic approach to all these questions Mahāvīra has, I think rightly, been called 'the most versatile thinker we know of in ancient India'2.
1. E. FRAUWALLNER, Geschichte der indischen Philosophie (Salzburg, 1953), vol. I, p. 247; cfr. also p. 253.
W. SCHUBRING, The Doctrine of the Jainas described after the Old Sources (Delhi etc., 1962), p. 40.
2.
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