Jain Journal 1980 01

SR No.: 520057
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication
Publication Year: 1980
Total Pages: 37
Language: English
Classification: Magazine, India_Jain Journal, & India
File Size: 2 MB

Page 6

112
JAIN JOURNAL
:
The reviewer is particularly intrigued by the following observation at p. 46 which states that attaining Kevala jñāna is a virtual disqualification for one to hold the spiritual chair. Here is the line :
"Since the Kevali neither administers nor preaches Sudharman must have assumed the leadership of the Jain order upon Indrabhuti Gautama's attainment of Omniscience.”
If this be correct, then the whole lot of the Tirthankaras would be disqualified because omniscience had come to them. According to the Kalpasūtra, at the time of Mahavira's passing away, only two out of eleven Ganadharas, viz,; Gautama and Sudharman, were alive, and Gautama was the seniormost of the lot. According to the same source, Gautama was removed by the express order of Mahavira from the spot where he was delivering his last sermon, and as Sudharman was being installed to Mahavira's seat, Gautama lay at a distance in a state of virtual coma, which in present context was kevala jñāna. A grand array of facts which speak many things not yet candidly spoken. In the Digambara view which rejects the eleven Argas of the Svetambaras, it was not difficult to hold that Gautama, not Sudharman, was the immediate successor of Mahavira (which perhaps does not rationally stand), but such a view goes against their own faith that an omniscient personality has no worldly activity nor even bodily function (p.43). The reviewer feels that the learned author should give a second thought to this sweeping statement about Sudharman's succession which, from any angle whatsover, needs justification.
And finally to the question which has been repeated by many writers, what is it that makes Jainism going, while the whole of the so-called Magadhan religious complex has disappeared from this country ? On this all writers, including the present one have harped on the same items, royal patronage, interest in lay followers, integration with the surrounding, and so on. But it is doubtful if they really answer the question. Such factors do exist in any religion and Jainism is no exception. As for royal patronage, Buddhism received it to the extent of which not even a fraction came to Jainism. Jaini writes about the efforts of Somadeva and Jinasena to introduce the pūjā form in Jainism and Jainaize certain pan-Indian social norms but these were efforts at knocking Jainism of its pedestal and giving it a theistic bias with temple going pūjā, prayer and all that and providing it a look like the younger brother of Hinduism, a distinct disservice. They have killed the very spirit of Jainism which is liberation through own efforts. According to the reviewer, two factors which exist in the text but have not been highlighted in this context, one objective