Tenth Wonder Domestication And Reform In Medieval Svetambara Jainism

SR No.: 269515
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Paul Dundas
Publisher: Paul Dundas
Total Pages: 14
Language: English
Classification: Article
File Size: 2 MB

Page 7

The Tenth Wonder
187
place near temples proved the main inspiration for permanent dwelling near these places 26. Unfortunately, up to now, there has been no evidence other than sectarian propaganda which could throw light upon the convictions of caityavāsin monks, and I would therefore like to draw attention to a short text, recently published on the basis of a single manuscript, entitled Dānādiprakarana (= DP), « A Treatise on Religious Giving etc. », written by an ācārya named Sūra 27. As noted above, Sūra was the name of the caityavāsin whom Kharatara sources claim to have been the opponent of Jineśvara at Anahillapattana. The editors of the DP, without mentioning the debate, state in their introduction that there are grounds for assigning the text to around 1030 or 1040, which would roughly fit the traditional Kharatara dating of the event. It is not clear whether Sūra is the same as the Sūra who is regarded as one of the « exalters of the doctrine » (prabhāvaka) and whose life is recounted by Prabhācandra (13th cent.) in his Prabhāvakacarita 28, but while there are grounds for suspecting that Sūra, the author of the DP, has, as an influential monk, been retrospectively assigned a role in the debate to provide Jineśvara with a suitably eminent opponent to controvert, I do not regard it as necessary to establish his identity, since there is sufficient evidence in the text itself to suggest that reforming groups such as the Kharatara Gaccha could not have found him orthodox.
The DP is, to a large extent, a conventional text, with much standard praise of the Jain path. Its main theme, however, is, as its title proclaims, dāna, religious giving, and Sūra attempts to establish this as the main structuring element within Jainism and as the form of religious activity most appropriate to the Kaliyuga (DP 7.82) 29. Denial of dāna betokens complete ignorance of scriptural tradition (DP 7.1) and, indeed, the entire path to liberation
26. Die Lehre der Jainas, p. 47. 27. Ed. A. M. Bhojak and N.J. Shah, L.D. Series 90, Ahmedabad, 1983.
28. Ed. Jinavijaya, Singhi Jain Series 13, Bombay, 1940, pp. 152-60. Prabhācandra does not mention the debate. Note that, while verses 20-5 depict Süra as sitting in a temple watching a dancing-girl, a typical caityaväsin practice according to the Kharataras, verse 142 describes him as lodging in an upäśraya, not a caitya, when visiting King Bhoja.
29. Not an exclusively Jain notion. Compare Manusmrti 1.86.