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A PROPOS OF THE BOTIKA SECT
M. A. Dhaky Sagarmal Jain
Up to the period of the niryuktis (c. A. D. 5251), the Svetämbara Jaina canon noticed only seven nihnavas (heretices), each of whom had differed on one singular point from, or one aspect or interpretation of, one or the other early doctrine of the Nirgrantha religion. Partly basing his exposition on the immediately preceding, rather succinct, exegetical notices and partly on the then current elucidatory traditions on such and similar old records, Jinabhadra gaņi kṣamääramana in the Viss Avasyaka-bhasya (c. A. D. 5853), presents an historical as well as quasi-historical account of these traditional seven, plus an additional or the eighth. heretic, Śivabhuti. While the preceding more ancient seven nihnavas ultimately had been proven inconsequential, the eighth one, the heresiarch Śivabhūti,-by his separation from the main ecclesiastical stream, brought about a major schism which eventually grew into a definite, viable, and an important sect with a school of thinking and practice that was branded "Botika drsti (Bodia ditthi)" by the post-agamic Svetambara commentators.
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The term "Botika" ("Bodiya" or "Bodiyāna" in Jaina Mahäräştri and "Bodiga" or "Bodia" in late Ardha-Magadhi) has been taken to mean "Digambara" by current Svetämbara writers, a misinterpretation that has been perpetrated presumably from the time of the late medieval Svetämbara writings onward, and had of late attracted unwarranted attacks on Jinabhadra gani kşamääramaņa by some pundits of the Digambara sect who did not suspect that the interpretation of the term and hence the ascription of the sect was wrong. Indeed," Walther Schubring was aware that the term did not originally imply the way it was later thought to be. Schubring, however, suggested no alternative interpretation. It was Muni Jambuvijaya who made a right guess that the appelation "Botika" had meant Yapaniya"".
Let it at the outset be clarified that, before Jinabhadra gani, the term. "Bodiya" is mentioned in the Bhāṣya (c. A. D. 550-575) on the Avasyaka-sütra; the bhāṣya-gatha, moreover, reports the date of the origination of "Bodiya ditthi" to be V. N. S. 609/A.D. 132. The still earlier Mula-bhāṣya (e. A. D. 550) briefly alludes to a question asked by Sivabhuti to Arya Krsna at Rathavirapura (the place of schism, unidentified, perhaps somewhere in M. P. or U. P., 10) which
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