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A CRITICAL STUDY OF PAUMACARIYAN
them for seeking spiritual emancipation. This disgust developed on accont of various kinds of wordly incidents. Some of the political reasons which led to asceticism were the defeat and humiliation in the battle(12.136;13.17; 37.64-65); preferring renouncement to submission to other king (9.44-46); and disgust from the horror of huge massacre in the battlefield (4.52). The household incident which led to asceticism were the lust of wealth and then enmity between sons and their mother (55.43), personal weakness in observing chastity (105.108); lustful eye on the flesh of one's own sister (3996); desire for another's wife and then lamentation (12.24); being not chosen in 'svayamvara' (106.27); being kidnapped by another man (30.70); being forcibly raped (103.102); losing one's own beyond recovery (26.20); one's wife being forcibly kept by another king and the unbearable pains of separation (21.5; 105.98); parent's getting separated from their son and daughter-in-law (30.65-67); the death of husband in the battle and sons' renouncement (6.75,82-84), the death of sons (5.197), the death of relatives (75.76-77; 110.37); mother being separated from her son who had taken dikşă (83.9-12); wife in separation of her husband who took dikşā (21.73), one's brothers' renunciation (113.70), or by friendship and by association (6.98).
Sītā on account of being blamed by the public and due to her husnand's doubt in her character, developed disguest for worldly miseries and became a nun (102.46). Rāma on being disgusted with various vicissitudes in worldly life (113.69) accepted asceticism. Kings are generally said to be renouncing the world at the time of their old age after transferring the crown to their sons (21.27: 5.250; 6.154). Some took dikṣa on having listened to the religious discourses from monks on the worldly miseries (5.164; 31.55; 32.21) or having heard the account of their miserable previous births (5.215: 6.147).
Sometimes very trivial causes were responsible for renouncing the world such as on seeing the blue cloth (3.122) or a waning winter cloud (21.22) or the grabing of the sun by Rāhu (21.81) or the bee dying in the lotus (5.218) or the sky overcast with clouds and devoid of the moon (108.23-24-47) or the withering lotuses (5.55).
Eligibility for becoming a Jaina monk:-The Paumacariyan reveals that there was no age-limit for entering the ascetic order. Any person at any period of his age could enter the Order. Women? were freely admitted without any distinction of sex or age. In addi
1. 21.72. 77; 22.21; 25.20; 39.47; 41.63; 80.26; 103.102; 106.46; 110.41. 2. 30.67.70;41.63; 103.102.
