Some Aspects of Jainism in Eastern India

SR No.: 006725
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Pranabananda Jash
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publisher's Pvt Ltd New Delhi
Publication Year: 1989
Total Pages: 170
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 15 MB

Page 86

Some Aspects of Jainism in Ea tern Indi:
kings or persons in authority. They should not make any inti. macy with any householder, although they had to depend on society for maintaining livelihood.
The question of clothes was a controversial one amongst the Jainas. The Digambaras believe that Mahāvira abandoned clothes at the time of his initiation, while the Svetāmbaras hold that he abandoned them after thirteen months. Anyway, Mahāvira was in favour of nakedness. He felt that an ascetic must have completely conquered all his emotions, shame amongst others. A true monk would not feel either heat or cold, and so would not need the protection from the weather offered by cloths, and he would be so indifferent to mere appearances as to be unconscious as to whether he wore raiment or not. In this connection we may mention the following observation: “Jaina monks are naked because Jainism says that as long as one entertains the same idea of nakedness as we do, he cannot obtain salvation. One cannot, according to Jain principles, obtain mokşa, as long as he remembers that he is naked. He can only cross over the ocean of the world after he has forgotten that he is naked .... As long as a man thinks and knows that he is naked, that there is something like good and evil, he cannot obtain mokşa. He must forget it to obtain nirvāņa."
Regarding clothes and other essential requirements of the Parivrājakas of the Jaina order, we have Jaina manuals mentioning rules and regulations in this context. We learn from the Acārangasūtra62 that Mahāvira used his robe 'for a year and a month and then he became 'a naked, world-relinquishing and houseless sage'. Though Mahāvīra himself followed the more rigorous practice of going completely naked, yet he permitted the Niganhas to put on a single robe which justifies the reference to them as "Ekasāțak" by Gośāla.63 But they were also described as ‘a-chela', i.e., complete nakedness.64 The explanation of this discrepancy must be an actual discrepancy of practice in connection with clothing among the early Niganthas. The more ardent followers of Mahāvira, the Jinakalpikas and those Ajivikas who continued to remain within the Nirgrantha foldas seem to have probably followed the principle of entirely nakedness, while the other probably adhered to the less rigid but older practice. C.J. Shah observes, "Taking it historically and literally, we can say that the Svetāmbaras are more akin to Pārsvanātha than to Mahāvīra, and Digamba ras are nearer the latter, because Mahāvīra passed many years of his life as a pro