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Uttaradhyayana and Daśavaikalika
mechanically tagged to the early half which is of the form of a parable and it compares the fate of three types of men to that of three types of traders; thus the man who is next born as a man is like the trader who just manages to save his principle-money, the man who is next born as a god is like the trader who earns a profit, the man who is next born as a hellish being or an animal is like the trader who incurs loss (vv. 14-16). In this analogy there is provided no room for the case of the man who attains mokṣa and the conclusion ought to be that it is exclusively concerned with the fate of a householder. An indirect reference to a pious householder occurs in the later half of chapter 3 too; this later half is virtually in the form of a gloss on the general thesis that a pious monk is either next born as a god or he attains mokşa (vv. 12-13), a thesis which in its bare form occurs in the concluding verse of chapter 1. The later half of chapter 3 describes how a pious monk is next born as a god and after that as a prosperous and pious householder who attains mokṣa (v. v. 14-20); Thus what is here described is not a pious householder as such-that is, one who remains a householder for the whole of his life but one who eventually becomes a monk, monkhood being an indispensable condition for attaining mokṣa. Lastly, an incidental reference to a pious householder occurs in Chapter 9, which describes the story of Nami's world-renunciation; here (vv. 41-44), Indra disguiezed as a Brahmin asks Nami not to become a monk but to lead the life of a pious householder, a suggetion which Nami parries by pointing out that the performance of a plous householder is much too inadequate to lead one to mokşa. These Uttaradhyayana-passages containing a direct, indireet or incidental reference to a plous householder are noteworthy but equally noteworthy is the circumstance that in this text no homily, no story, no parable, no systematic treatment of a topic is exclusively concerned with the problems of a pious householder's life. For baring the exceptions just noted the whole text is devoted to the problems of a monk's life (in a few cases to the problems of general theory).
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Jain Education International
The Uttaradhyayana treatment of the problems of a monk's life has its own special features. Precisely in the spirit of Acaranga I and Sutrakṛtanga I the text lays unconditional emphasis on the describing of one embracing the career of a monk, an aspect of its teaching we will examine later on, But particularly interesting is its testimony on the question of lonely wandering on the part of a monk and this testimony deserves more than passing notice. In several independent passages it is here categorically asserted that lonely wandering is an ideal monastic practice. Thus in Chapter 35 (verse 6) we have 'In a cremationground, in a quarter permanently vacant, under the root of a tree, in an unoccupied quarter built for someone else he should take up residence all alone', in chapter 15 (v. 16) A monk is he who having taken leave of home
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| SR No. | 001520 |
| Book Title | Early Jainism |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | K K Dixit |
| Publisher | L D Indology Ahmedabad |
| Publication Year | 1978 |
| Total Pages | 120 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English, Agam, Canon, & Philosophy |
| File Size | 7 MB |