Śramaṇa movement

Overview

The Śramaṇa movement is the name scholars give to the wandering ascetics who, from around the eighth century BCE, broke with the Brahman priests of Vedic India and their claim to ritual authority. Śramaṇa means roughly "one who strives" or "striver", and the word was set against brāhmaṇa, a priest who accepted the Vedas as revealed truth. Śramaṇas instead wandered as beggars, practised extreme bodily discipline, and sought release from an endless cycle of rebirth through their own effort rather than through sacrifice. The movement was not one school but many competing ones, most now lost; the ones that survived longest grew into Jainism, Buddhism and the now-extinct Ājīvika order. Because so few Śramaṇa texts survive in their own words, most of what is known about the movement as a whole comes from how the Buddhist and Jain traditions that outlasted it described their rivals.^[2–6]

History

Ferment on the Ganges plain c. 800–500 BCE

In the centuries before the Buddha and Mahavira, northern India saw growing unease with the costly animal sacrifices of Vedic religion, sharpened by a spreading belief that humans and animals shared one cycle of rebirth. Much of the opposition to Brahman ritual authority came from the Kshatriya, or warrior, caste, and from the wealthy merchant class of growing cities such as Shravasti and Vaishali, who backed wandering teachers rather than temple priests.^{[1, 7]}

Rival teachers and schools c. 6th–5th century BCE

Buddhist scripture remembers six leading non-Vedic teachers active in this period, including Mahavira (called Nigantha Nataputta in Pali texts), the reformer of Jainism, and Makkhali Gosala, founder of the Ājīvika order; the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, was their contemporary. Each led a following of wandering renunciants, and rival groups treated one another as dangerous competitors for the same lay support.^[8–9]

Beliefs

śramaṇa · श्रमण

striver, one who exerts effort

Śramaṇas held that liberation from rebirth came through an individual's own ascetic effort, not from Vedic sacrifice performed by a priest on someone's behalf; most of their schools rejected the Vedas as authoritative at all.^{[5, 10]}

Practice

Wandering asceticism

Common to Śramaṇa groups was a life of homeless wandering, begging for food, and deliberately harsh bodily discipline such as fasting or exposure, meant to work off or burn away whatever bound the soul to further rebirth.^[4]

Art & objects

Public-domain objects from museum collections. Select one to see it at the museum.

Buddha Shakyamuni Meditating in the Indrashala Cave [top] and Buddha Dipankara [bottom]Gandhara, 2nd/3rd centuryStamped Tile with Crouching AsceticsKashmir, 4th/6th centurySeated AsceticsIndia, Kashmir, Harwan, 300s CEBase for a Seated Buddha with Figures of AsceticsPakistan, Gandhara, Kushan period, c. late 100s CEFasting Buddha ShakyamuniPakistan (ancient region of Gandhara), Kushan period, 3rd–5th centuryTile with Impressed Figures of Emaciated Ascetics and Couples behind Balconies and GandersIndia (ancient kingdom of Kashmir, Harwan), 5th–6th centuryFour Ascetic BrahmansPakistan (ancient region of Gandhara), ca. 2nd centuryAscetic YouthPakistan (ancient region of Gandhara), 1st–3rd centurySeated Ascetic, Deified King, Agni (The God of Fire)India (Kaushambi, Uttar Pradesh), ca. 3rd centuryDipankara Jataka (The Story of the Ascetic Megha and the Buddha Dipankara)Pakistan (ancient region of Gandhara, Swat Valley), ca. 2nd century

How we know

How we know

No Śramaṇa text written by a non-Jain, non-Buddhist member of the movement survives. What is known of rival teachers such as Makkhali Gosala comes almost entirely from Buddhist and Jain scripture, which presented them as rivals to be refuted, so their own doctrines are reconstructed at one remove and may be distorted or incomplete.^[6]

Common misconceptions

Glossary

śramaṇa · श्रमण

"Striver": a wandering ascetic who rejected the ritual authority of the Vedas and the Brahman priesthood, as opposed to an orthodox brāhmaṇa.^{[2, 5]}

brāhmaṇa · ब्राह्मण

A priest of the orthodox Vedic tradition who accepted the Vedas as revealed authority; the term against which śramaṇa was defined.^[2]

nāstika · नास्तिक

"One who denies": a school, such as Buddhism, Jainism or the Ājīvikas, that does not accept the authority of the Vedas, as opposed to an orthodox āstika school.^[10]