Arya Bhadrabahu

Author(s): M A Dhaky
Publisher: Z_Nirgranth_Aetihasik_Lekh_Samucchay_Part_1_002105.pdf and Nirgranth_Aetihasik_Lekh_Samucchay_Part_2

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M. A. Dhaky
Jambu-jyoti
in terms of the doctrinal principles and consequent monastic rules, such a situation was to manifest in the future times in western India, indeed some centuries posterior to even the period of Arya Raksita (c. 1st cent. A. D.) who had permitted only one additional pātra or bow165 beside the usual (single) begging bowl and who advocated and practised strict nudity, allowing no other possession including loin cloth (kati-bandhana, kari-pattaka, cola-pattaka) for a friar66, the kati-bandhana, interestingly, is noted in the Kalpa and in the relatively later portion of the Acāranga I. (If the Kalpa indeed was authored by Bhadrabāhu, then this point will have a bearing on Bhadrabāhu's doctrinal leanings and creedal connections.)
4) The Kalpa loudly talks about a "shelter-building” (uvassaya, upāśraya) which temporarily may be occupied by friars and nuns and also enters into considerable detail relating to its surroundings as well as its internal disposition 67. Places such as these as temporary resorts for recluses virtually is an impossible reality in the early phase of the Church of Vardhamana : because, the earlier āgamic injunction refers exclusively to cemetery (susana i.e. smaśāna), ruined and desolate dwelling-houses (sunnāgāra, śūnyāgāra), and tree-bases (rukhamūla, vškşamüla) as places appropriate for recluses to take shelter by or into68. The Kalpa, of course, is aware at least of vrksamüla and also adds there 'bamboo-clump base' which it permits to the nirgranthas but forbids to the nirgranthis, nuns69. However, the older spirit and the forms of very rigorous ascetic practices are somewhat wanting in this (as well as, even more so, in the Vyavahāra) text.
The Kalpa, though forbidding the nuns to stay at the travellers' lodge (ägamanagrha), permits the mendicants to do so70. The latter clause is again inconsistent with the most ancient friars' discipline if we take into account the earlier notions of the Nirgrantha monastic constraints as laid down in, or understandably followed within, the Church of Arhat Vardhamana. Indeed, this and several other such points encourage toward reassessing the nature of monastic discipline of Bhadrabāhu's time.
5) The style of the Kalpa, though sounding fairly ancient where the sutras generally begin as 'No kappati' (not permissible), or 'Kappati' (permissible), is seldom encountered in other disciplinary agamas like the Acāränga Book II, the Nīšitha, etc?l. It is, perhaps, likely that such a style of phrasing may have been peculiar more to the books of monastic codes,