Aspects of Jaina Monasticism

Author(s): Nathmal Tatia, Mahendramuni
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati

Page 50

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The Sabalas
their efforts to be lucid, case after in the Brāhmaṇical way of life. This case of possible or actual deviation was evidently responsible for the from the general rule was investiga- comparative lack of sexual aberrated, penalised and perpetuated. tions mentioned in the Brāhmanical Hence it cannot justly be said that literature. The absence of intensive the tendency to be detailed is moral and spiritual programmes greater or more insistent in one was also perhaps responsible for pārājika, or in one sanghādisesa those aberrations in the life of than in others. Such lack of restraint monks and nuns who mostly found as is found may be embarrassing to themselves divorced and isolated us, but it must be remembered that from the common run of mankind. early peoples were not so much The Jaina ācāryas were aware of afraid of plain speech as we are. this fact and recommended a heavy No stigma of indecency or obscenity daily routine for their monks and should therefore be attached to nuns to ward off the vagrancy of such Vinaya passages as seem un- their minds. necessarily outspoken to us. For A fter this long digression, we they were neither deliberately come to the other sabalas beginning indecent nor deliberately obscene. with the third. The matters to which they refer 3. Rāibhoaņa (taking food at night). had to be legislated for as much as This is comparable to the Buddhad matters of theft and murder, of hist pācittiya no. 37 : yo pang choosing sites for huts and vihāras.” bhikkhu vikāle khádaniyam vā These passages, however, are regar- bhojanijam vā khādeyja vā bhunded by her interesting historically, jeyya vā pācitriyam. Here a monk scientifically and psychologically, is prohibited from taking food in even psycho-analytically, because the afternoon. In the Yājñavalk yathey might be of value to anyone smrti21 a yati (ascetic) is allowed to making a detailed comparison of beg food only in the fourth quarter Eastern and Western monachism of the day. It follows, therefore,
But the question remains why that the Buddhists and the Brāhthe subject is treated so elaborately maņas also did not allow taking in Jainism and Buddhism whereas food at night. it finds a very brief representation 4. Ahākamma-bhoaņam (taking food in the Brāhmaṇical discipline. One prepared for the monk). of the reasons was perhaps the 5. Räipimda-bhoanam (taking food admission in the monastic organi- offered by the king). zations of persons irrespective of 6. Kīyam (purchased), pāmiccam their age and worldly experience by (borrowed), acchijjum (snatched), the Jainas and the Buddhists. There aņisittham (not disowned), ähattu was, however, an intervention of dijjamānam (offered as carried from two stages of life, viz. those of the elsewhere for the monk). grhastha and the vānaprastha bet- 7. Enjoyment of a given up article ween the brahmacar ya and samnyāsa repeatedly