Acharya Mahaprajna
Let us refer to the society during the times of Bhagwan Mahavira. In the dedicated society that he created, both ownership and consumption were limited.
Ownership is a fundamental, basic attitude. We can analyse ownership in terms of psychology. MacDugal and other scientists have classified the basic human attitudes.
Mahavira while analysing human nature said that man has a basic mental trait. He demonstrates a sense of authority, of possession and of accumulation of wealth. Everything that has been happening is the result of a sense of authority. Other attitudes are by-products of that. This mentality is not peculiar to man. It is found in the lowliest of creatures and even plants. To explain this feeling of attachment and authority, Acharya Malayagiri has given the example of amarbel (a creeper). Amarbel, to start with, climbs up by taking support of the tree. Then it establishes its authority over the entire tree, spreads all over it, and slowly eats it away. The sense of authority is there even in a honeybee. It is there even in an ant and it is there in all small and big living beings. Even the smallest of the living being resorts to accumulation for itself.
The sense of authority is a basic attitude of mind.
