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Early Jainism
a prior arrangement, (ii) something that is brought to hin from a distance by the donor, (iii) something that has been snatched away from its rightful owner, (iv) something that is a common property of more own. ers than one-- not all of whom have sanctioned it to be gifted away, (v) something that has been borrowed on credit, (vi) something that has been purchased. It is somewhat easy to comprehend the first four of these prohibitions, perhaps also the fifth: but the sixth remains intriguing. Sale and credit are two most basic institutions of an urban civilisation and it seems that these early theoreticians were somehow actuated by a feeling of non-cooperation in relation to the urban civilisation along with its basic institutions. The surmise is somewhat confirmed when we further learn that in the later standard list of prohibitions an additional item is something that is received by way of barter'; certainely, in the course of social evolution what begins as barter later develops into sale against cash-payment, (or sale on credit). In any case, our texts are un-aquainted with this standard list in its entirety. A subsection (with 16 items) of this list refers to the secular means a monk might (illegitimately) emplcy in order to procure things needed by him; the items in question are not as such present in our texts but the motif coaceraed is clearly there in Sūtrakrtānga I.
8. Monastic Jurisprudence : not yet Formulated
By monastic jurisprudence are to be understood the rules and regulations that guide a monk's functioning inside a church-unit with its appropriate hierarchy. The earliest available most comprehensive formulation of such jurisprudence is to be found in Vyavahārasūtra, but the type of cirumstances usually envisaged there are seldom found depicted in our texts. Most conspicuous in this connection is the absence of all mention of a church-unit with an appropriate heirarchy. The texts do speak of a Śāsta (=instructor) but he seems to be no more than the person who im. parts to a young monk his first lessons in matters spiritual and religious; that is to say, he does not seem to be the head of a Church-unit. Some idea of the headship of a church-unit emerges in Sūtrakrtanga I (14.2.3) where it is said about a young monk who has not yet fully assimilated his lessons that in case he sets out to wander alone he will be behaving like the young of a bird who has not yet properly learnt to fly but who yet ventures out in the open. The illustration clearly suggests that the disciple was to stay with the preceptor not beyond a period that was absolutely necessary for his proper spiritual equipment. Certainly, the general practice of a whole group of monks wandering about together under the leadership of a chief with his subordinate staff seems to have been a comaparatively
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