Yasastilaka and Indian Culture

SR No.: 001609
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Krishnakant Handiqui
Publisher: Jain Sanskruti Samrakshak Sangh Solapur
Publication Year: 1968
Total Pages: 566
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Story, Literature, & Culture
File Size: 16 MB

Page 125

106
YASASTILAKA AND INDIAN CULTURE
is called rajarakṣā or protection of kings, and is in keeping with the precaution against familiarity with women recommended as a measure of self-defence. There are no adequate grounds for holding that Somadeva is a misogynist. It is noteworthy that almost all the attacks on women in Yasastilaka are put in the mouth of Yasodhara and the Jaina ascetic Sudatta, appropriately enough, it would seem. Somadeva refers also to the Digambara Jaina doctrine that women are unfit for salvation', but he declares in emphatic terms that women are superior to men in the intellectual field (1. 146):
देहायते कर्मण्ययं नरः स्त्रीजनोऽयमिति भवति । चित्तायत्ते कर्मण्यधिका नारी तु मध्यमः पुरुषः ॥ "Discrimination between men and women is valid in respect of physical activity. But women are superior and men inferior in intellectual activity." It may also be noted that Somadeva as a practical thinker tells us in Nitivakyamṛta that women are neither good nor bad: they are, like the Ocean of Milk, the source of poison as well as nectar (24. 10), and have neither any innate merit nor blemish, but become just like their husbands, as rivers assume the character of the ocean when they are merged therein (24. 25). The Jaina author's position with regard to women is, in fact, similar to that of Kalhana as stated in a verse of his Rājatarangini (VII. 856),
व्रजति रजनी त्यक्त्वा वापि क्षये क्षणदाकरं पदमुपगतस्यास्तं संध्या रवेरनुगच्छति । zfa qŵnàì ànogamaà affarafa man Ĥqmıfarai afui a ar gfùai far: 11 The guiding principles of a king's policy in matters affecting peace and war, and, generally speaking, his relations with other kings are expounded in an academic discussion in verse in Book III. The framework of the discussion is provided by an examination of the relative claims of daiva and puruşakāra, a subject bearing on rajadharma, as already recognised in early texts like Yajnavalkya (1. 346 ). The king is also recommended to rule the kingdom, as a gardener looks after the garden (3.107):
वृक्षान् कण्टकिनो बहिर्नियमयन् विश्लेषयन् संहितानुस्खातान् प्रतिरोपयन् कुसुमितांश्चिन्वंलघून् वर्धयन् । उच्चान् संनमयन् पृथुंश्च कृशयन्नात्युच्छ्रितान् पातयन् मालाकार इव प्रयोगनिपुणो राजन् महीं पालय ॥
"Skilled in devising ways and means, rule the earth, like a gardener, oking expelling the petty enemies, like thorny plants; disuniting the united; replanting the uprooted; collecting dues from the well-to-do, as a gardener gathers flowers from the blossoming trees; elevating the lowly, as a gardener rears the smaller plants; humbling the high-born, as he bends the tall-growing ones; reducing the great, as he thins out the thick under
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Yasastilaka 1. 145. 2 See Chap VII.
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