Vastu-shastra (Vol. I: Hindu Science of Architecture; Vol. II: Hindu Canons of Iconography and Painting) v2.c75.s1.71

v2.c75.s1.71

The references, which we get in the older historical document of great importance (that is the Mahābhārata), are clear enough not only to bring into the forefront the Bhāgavata cult centering round Nārāyaṇa - Vāsudeva, reaching its culmination in the Pañcarātra system of philosophy, metaphysics and ritualism-vide Bhī. p. 65-66; Āśva p.53-55; Śā.p.335–346 and the Nārāyaṇīyopākhyāna etc. etc. but also a very important religious and cultural reaction which remains hitherto unexplored. It is a religious and ethical tendency akin to that of Buddhism which brings the whole development of Vaiṣṇavism as a similar reaction to the Vedism especially ‘Brāhmaṇism. This reaction as a revolt to Brāhmaṇic Theology and complicated Ritual of sacrifices involving also killing, the hiṃsā of animals (the Yajñapaśus) was first perceptible in the last treatises of the Vedic lore, the Āraṇyakas and Upaniṣads themselves where the quest of the reality, from the external gods propitiated and won through the agency of sacrifice, was shifted and promulgated into the internal Ātman. So for this remained perfectly orthodox, nevertheless, it also provided another channel for the hetrodox religious systems like Buddhism and Jainism to raise a hue and cry against the old dogma in which their followers attained no small measure of success. This made a profound change in the life and beliefs of the time. Hence in order to keep up to the eternal promise of the great god Viṣṇu—‘Dharmasaṃsthāpanārthāya sambhavāmi yuge yuge—the great thinkers, the religious teachers and the wise custodians of the ancient culture reoriented the old religion in such a way as to bring it at par with the time-honoured basic foundations of these reactionary movements, that is, to do away with the hiṃsā and prescribe a religious code of pious living and to adopt the leader as one of the incarnations of one of the most prominent gods of Hinduism—the great Viṣṇu. To substantiate this hypothesis, the references in the lore, though few and far between, nevertheless give a sufficient ground to hold on. The Mahābhārata Nārāyaṇīyopākhyāna refers to the Pañcarātra system. Pañcarātra is also referred as Sātvatadharma (Ait. Br.8.3.14) and it is supported by the Mahābhārata itself. The Śatapatha describes ‘Pañcarātra satra’ with a very important characteristic of the absence of hiṃsā in it. Further in the following passage of the Mahābhārata—