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JAIN JOURNAL: VOL-XXXIX, NO. 4 APRIL. 2005
white robed predecessors of the Svetāmbara Jainas afflicted by the post-famine scarcity of alms and perplexed by intra-monastic squabbles had taken shelter in a large number into the precinct of the walls of Asokārāma donning the yellow robes. Probably Moggaliputta Tissa and other senior theras of the Aśokārāma had an inkling regarding the previous affiliations of the erring monks or the hereties.
Hence they had taken such uncanonical procedures of clothing the heretics in their former white robes (setakāni vattham) and sending them to residences not fit for the Buddhist monks (anāvāsasi). In fact, the decision was an ecclesiastical decision, but curiously enough it was executed by the order of a king, (Aśoka), who was simply a devotee of the Buddha—at best, an upăsaka.
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