Shramana

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Shramana (devanāgarī: श्रमणा śramaṇā) refers to a non-Vedic movement parallel to Vedic Hinduism in ancient India. The Shramana tradition gave rise to Jainism, Buddhism, Yoga, and was responsible for concepts such as nirvāṇa, samsara, and mokṣa.[1]

Notes

  1. Gavin Flood and Patrick Olivelle, The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism (Malden: Blackwell, 2003), 273-4. "The second half of the first millennium BCE was the period that created many of the ideological and institutional elements that characterize later Indian religions. The renouncer tradition played a central role during this formative period of Indian religious history....Some of the fundamental values and beliefs that we generally associate with Indian religions in general and Hinduism in particular were in part the creation of the renouncer tradition. These include the two pillars of Indian theologies: samsara - the belief that life in this world is one of suffering and subject to repeated deaths and births (rebirth); moksa/nirvana - the goal of human existence....."