Jain Journal 2005 04

SR No.: 520158
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication
Publication Year: 2005
Total Pages: 58
Language: English
Classification: Magazine, India_Jain Journal, & India
File Size: 3 MB

Page 30

CHITTARANJAN PAL: WERETHEMONKS EXPELLED FROM THE BUDDHIST
examination of all his sons to find out who was the best to be his successor on the throne.21
If the literary tradition is to be believed, the parents of Asoka were well-connected with the Ājīvikas and as such the sect cannot be presumed to be neglected at all. It is further to be noted that Aśoka made the grant of cave-dwellings in the Barabara hills to the Ājīvikas22 in the year B.C. 258/257, several years before the convocation of the "Third council at Pātaliputra". So in comparision to other established sects, save and except, the Buddhists, Aśoka was more favourably inclined to the Ājīvikas. This reverence for the Ājīvikas Aśoka probably inherited from his parents, so the Ājīvikas were not at all a neglected and indigent religious order during the reign of Bindusāra and Aśoka. Hence the possibility of the entry of a large number of the Ājīvikas into the Buddhist Samgha on the prospect of getting food, shelter etc. does not arise at all.
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On the contrarry, the Nirgranthas, as stated above, were in a pitiable and deplorable condition after the migration of twelve thousand monks accompanied by Emperor Chandra Gupta and his preceptor Bhadrabahu to the south, on the visitation of 12 year-long terrible famine. So the entry of a large number of Nirgranthas into the Buddhist samgha of the Aśokāräma on the prospect of getting food and medicine was a fair possibility. The history of the Nirgrantha religions order would tell the same tale.
After the departure of Bhadrabahu, the recognized "Head of the Church" to the south, Sthulabhadra, a disciple of the former, became the informal head of the recluses who stayed at home, ravaged by the famine and during his pontificate some laxities had crept in the observance of the strict monastic rules obligatory for the Jaina recluses, Among the very many laxities that entered into the Jaina monastic
21. R. K Mudherji, Asoka, p. 64 ff.
22. Dr. R. Bhandarkar, Asoka, chapter VIII p. 23 ff.