Aspects of Jaina Monasticism

SR No.: 001332
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Nathmal Tatia, Mahendramuni
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati
Publication Year: 1981
Total Pages: 175
Language: English
Classification: Book_English & Philosophy
File Size: 10 MB

Page 111

Yathålandaka 79
conduct and intimate association public welfare, on the completion of the ācārya with the laity on the of the course. This is very pecuone hand and the members of the liar. The Digambara account of Order on the other.
the life of Lord Mahāvīra, after the The practitioners of the jina- attainment of omniscience, is very kalpa were practically completely meagre and provides very little isolated ascetics leading an eremi- information about the versatile and tical life. But the followers of the magnetic personality of the Lord. Elder's Course had to live an active life in the interest of the fourfold nudity (acela-dharma)247 did not Sangha--the lay men and women, perhaps enjoy lasting influence. and the monks and nuns. The His Order of monks and nuns Digambara view of the Elder's continued to follow, it appears, the Course is very much influenced by time-honoured monastic code intheir conception of sthavirakalpa herited from the Pārsva's Order, being not much different from
preserved in the Purvas that formed that of jinakalpa. The monks of a part of the twelfth Arga, called sthavirakalpa are allowed to look Drstivāda, which must have been a after the social welfare to a very store-house of the doctrines of prelimited extent. The Svetāmbara Mahävīra Indian thinkers, both view, on the other hand, provided Vedic and non-Vedic. This also a wider scope to the monastic explains the authority of the ChedaOrder. Lord Mahavira's attitude in Sūtras, said to have been composed this regard is, however, difficult to
by Bhadrabāhusvāmin about 150 ascertain. The accounts found in years after the parinirvāņa of the the Ardhamägadhi Agamas that are Lord. The relevant question in extant confirm the view that Lord this connection is the final source Mahāvīra took live interest in all of authority for Bhadrabāhu himaspects of life : social, political, self. If Lord Mahāvīra did not scientific, and so on. In the words give these rules, where they were of Dr Schubring, Lord Mahāvīra derived from? We may here venwas "the most versatile thinker, we ture to suggest that the earlier know of in ancient India",246 His monastic code was inherited from ascetic life, of which we find an sources which were pre-Mahāvīra, authentic record, unmixed with and the inheritance was bequeathed myth, in the Ayāro, was respon- to the followers of Nigantha Nāyasible for the conception of the jina- putta by the twenty-third tirthankalpa. Lord Mahāvira's active kara Pārsva. It is admitted that life starts with his first sermon the Chedasūtras and even the Dasaafter his enlightenment at the end veyäliya owe their authority to the of his ascetic career. The aim of the Pūrvas which were considered to be jinakalpa, as described in monastic their original source.248 treatises, is, however, not an active The controversy about the life of the practitioner devoted to keeping of outfits such as robes,