Studies in Jainism

SR No.: 006565
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Ramkrishna Mission Institute of Culture Culcutta
Publisher: Ramkrishna Mission Institute of Culture Culcutta
Publication Year: 1997
Total Pages: 182
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 11 MB

Page 26

JAINISM : ITS HISTORY, PRINCIPLES
17
the tenth century, showed a special leaning towards Jainism and gave a great impetus to the development of Jaina art and literature. Many Jaina poets of great repute flourished under them. Virasena wrote his monumental works, the Dhavalā and the Jayadhavalā, in exposition of the Satkhandāgama, under Jagattunga and his successor. Jinasena and Gunabhadra composed the Mahāpurāna at the time of King Amoghavarşa, when Mahāvīrācārya also wrote his work on mathematics. Amoghavarşa himself was an author, and his Ratnamālikā, though a Jaina work, became very popular with people of all sects, and it has frequently been imitated. He is said to have become a Jaina monk in the latter part of his life. There is epigraphical evidence of the fact that one of his successors, Indra IV, died by the Jaina form of renunciation. The famous Apabhramsa poet Puşpadanta was patronized by the ministers of Krşna III and his successor. About A.D. 1100, Jainism gained ascendancy in Gujarat, where the Caulukya kings Siddharāja and his son Kumārapāla openly professed Jainism and encouraged the literary and temple building activities of the Jains. Hemancandra, the author of several works on different topics, religious as well as secular, lived at the court of the latter.
Jainism is one and undivided so far as its philosophy is concerned. But about the beginning of the Christian era, it became split up into two sects called Digambaras and the Svetambaras, chiefly on the point of certain rules and regulations for the monks, the most important difference being that while the former held that monks could not wear any clothes, the latter asserted that they could. During the centuries that followed, further minor splits took place amongst both these sects, the most important of them being one that renounced idol-worship altogether and devoted itself to the worship of the scriptures. These are called Teräpanthis amongst the Svetāmbaras and Samaiyās amongst the Digambaras. This sect came into existence not earlier than the sixteenth century.