History of Jaina Monachism

SR No.: 001727
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: S B Deo
Publisher: Deccan College Research Institute
Publication Year: 1956
Total Pages: 616
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Principle, & History
File Size: 12 MB

Page 484

HISTORY OF JAINA MONACHISM
479
Clothes Fit for Nuns:
She could beg clothes prepared out of wool, silk, hemp, palm-leaves, cotton or 'Arkatula', or of such other varieties.94 So also, fit, sturdy and lasting but pure clothes were accepted by her. 95 Number of Clothes:
In all, only four clothes were used by the nuns. One of them was two cubits broad (duhatthavitthāram), two of them were three cubits broad, and the fourth was four cubits in breadth.96
When to Wear These Clothes:
While going for the alms-round or for religious practices or study or on usual tour, the nuns were asked to put on all their clothes.97
The Sthānānga98 says that the first was used in the nunnery (upāśraye), the second while going on the begging tour, the third when going to ease nature, and the fourth while going to a religious sermon (samosarana).
Care about the Clothes:
From the rule which disallowed the monks as well as the nuns to "make coloured clothes colourless and colour colourless clothes”,99 it appears that colour did not get as much importance in the early days as it did later, on, and the monks as well as the nuns perhaps used coloured clothes given by the laymen to them. Not only this but they were allowed to sew together pieces of clothes to bring them to the proper breadth 100 Some later texts,101 however, clearly state that only white clothes were to be worn by a nun, and she was forbidden to stitch together or embroider clothes for laymen.102
As seen already, no washing of clothes was allowed in plentiful water.103 Airing or drying the clothes, however, was permitted, and that too,
94. Ibid., II, 5, 1, 1 (p. 157). 95. Ibid., II, 5, 1, 16 (p. 162). 96. Ibid., II, 5, 1, 1 (p. 157); Than. p. 186b. 97. Acar. II, 5, 2, 1 (p. 163). 98. p. 187b (comm.). 99. Acar. II, 5, 2,5 (p. 164). 100. Ibid., II, 5, 1, 1 (p. 157). 101. Gacchācāra, 112. 102. Ibid., 123.
103. Acār. II, 5, 1, 17 (p. 162); The Pindaniryukti, however, does permit the washing of clothes sometime early before the rains begin. It is not clear whether the rule applied even to the nuns.