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Four Old Chedasūtras
Schubring hos even suggested (DC, p.3) that here Ācāraprakalpa should be equated not with Nišītha but with Ācārānga II which too is a monastic disciplinary text. This suggestion is based on the consideration that other. wise one will have to concede that the Vyavahāra rulings in question are silent over an important text like Ācārānga II. The merit of Schubring's position is that it makes possible the identification of Ācāraprakalpa with a text whose title contains the word 'Acāra., but otherwise it has its own weakness. For elsewhere (VN, p.9) he has himself argued that Acärānga II in view of its better systematization should be taken to be a text composed later than Nisitba - so that if it be anomalous that the Vyayahāra rulings in question maintain silence over Ācārānga II which is a relatively later disciplinary text then it should be still more anomalous that they maintain silence over Niśitha which is a relatively early disciplinary text. Even so, one cannot help wondering why these rulings do not mention Nigitba by the title under which it was known to all later generations. Maybe the text originally called Acāraprakalpa was later called Niśītha just as the text originally called Vyākayāprajñapti was later called Bhagavati.
In the ease of a Chedasūtra it is also necessary to know as to what sort of church organization it envisages. The earliest Jaina (as well as Buddhist) texts definitely give the impression that their ideal of monastic life was a monk wandering all alone. In the earliest stage of the evolution of the monastic institution - a stage reflected in the texts in question
that should also be natural. But the logic of the situation also demanded that newly ordained monk should have received due instruction at the feet of an experienced teacher who too must have a monk. So what would happen was that only the experienced monks wandered about along with an entourage - that is, in the company of fresh disciples who would take to lonely wandering as soon as their education was over. This much about the earliest stage characterizing the evolution of the monastic institution. As for the concerned latest stage we find it reflected in the commentarial literature devoted to the Chedasūtras; therefrom we learn that by that time the usual practice was for the monks to wander about in the form of a monastic unit called gaccha and equipped with a well-ordered administrative staff.
Our Chedasūtras seem to reflect a stage of evolution that is midway between that earliest one and this latest one. In these texts the usual monastic unit is gana equipped with a well-ordered administrative staff - this like the latter-day gaccha; but a gana would not move about in the form of a unit - this uolike the latter-day gaccha. For only thus can he understood the practices like sambhoga (=joint taking of meals) (Kalpa 4.4, Vyav.7.4], samvāsa (= joint residence ) [Kalpa 4.4, Vyav.7.4]
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