The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c13.s3.t5.1

c13.s3.t5.1

In the *Laghu Arhannīti*²³ of Hemachandra (1089-1173), the small Jaina work in Sanskrit verse, we have, as it were, an interpretation of Hindu culture through Jaina eyes. *Nītiśāstra* is declared by the author to have been taught by Mahāvīra, the founder of Jainism himself, to the king of Magadha, who approached him for lessons in this science. And in Mahāvīra's version the science sprang out of the Tīrthamkara *milieu*. The first king of the Jaina tradition, namely Ṛiṣabha, is, according to Mahāvīra, the founder or rather restorer of *Nīti* among the Bhāratas. They are said to have lost their former glories owing to the inroads of the *Kali* (Iron) Age. And so in Ṛiṣabha we are taught to see a benefactor who placed the Bhāratas on the proper lines of progress. It is interesting that Mahāvīra does not ignore the *dharmam purātanam* (the old, previous or traditional *mores*). It is out of the old *mores* that Ṛiṣabha is presented by him as having constructed the new (I. 14-15).