Early Jainism

SR No.: 001520
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

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Early Jainism
pertaining to the problem of medical treatment undertaken in the later disciplinary texts. Certainly, the authors of the later disciplinary texts were confronted with the general task of reconciling their own various positions with the harsh injunctions like these laid down in so celebrated a text as Uttaradhyayana. And they came out with the ingeneous suggestion that monks are of two types those called Jinakal pikas who wander about all alone and those called Sthavirakalpikas who wander about in the form of a monastic unit, the harsh injunctions of a text like Uttaradhyayana being obligatory on the former, their own relatively mild injunctions on the latter. Be that as it may, the Uttaradhyayana chapter on parişaha-is of use in assessing the historical value of this text.
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Dasavalkalika is a text very different in character from Uttaradhyayana and its historical importance too is very different. As already noted, it consists of ten chapters and two appendices all of the form of a homily addressed to a monk. And its intention seems to be to impart to a monk instructions on elements of monastic ethics and etiquette. However, since with a text like this even items of etiquette must be based on an ethical consideration it should perhaps be better to say that the intention of our text is to impart to a monk instructions on major and minor elements of monastic ethics. It remains to be argued as to what are here taken to be the major elements of monastic ethics and what the minor ones.
The principle of non-violence as practised in relation to the six types of living beings -viz. earth, water, fire, air, plants, and creatures - was a basic ethical principle with the Jalna theoreticions since the days of Acãrãnga I and Sūtrakṛtānga I. It remained so in the days of Daśavaikālika too but in this text it is frequently coupled with the principle of six great VOWS viz. non-violence, truth, not accepting what is not donated, contin. ence, not accumulating possessions, not eating during night time. The whole of chapter IV (minus its concluding verses) is denoted to a consideration of these two principles, paras 7-12 taking up the first, paras 1-6 the second, similarly, in chapter VI verse 27-46 take up the first principle, verses 9-26 the second, while in chapter X verses 2-4 take up the first principle, verse 5 the second (here confined to the first five great vows.) Lastly, chapter VIII verses 2-12 explicitly discuss the first principle, verses 17-29 implicitly discuss the second. All this is indicative of the newly realized significance of the principle of six (or five) great vows, a principle which in the old texts like Acaranga I and Sūtrakṛtānga I was conspicuous by its absence. Of. course, these old texts said a lot about the renunciation of arambha (=violence) and parigraha and also enough about that of mṛşa, adatṭādāna, maithuna but the concept of a collective renunciation of these five under the title 'five great vows' was a relatively late growth; and a relatively late date to be