Heart of Jainism

Author(s): Mrs Sinclair Stevenson
Publisher: Mrs Sinclair Stevenson

Page 85

AND DISCIPLES
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added the vow of chastity to the four vows of Pärśva. nātha's order, and all through the Jaina scriptures one seems to find references to this unworthy disciple. 'A wise man should consider that these (heretics) do not live a life of chastity.'1 'In the assembly he pronounces holy (words), yet secretly he commits sins; but the wise know him to be a deceiver and great rogue.' 2 A dialogue is given between a disciple of Mahāvīra's, called Ārdraka, and Gośāla, in which Gośāla, like many another impenitent, tries to defend himself by finding fault with his old leader, and takes up an antinomian position : 'according to our Law an ascetic, who lives alone and single, commits no sin if he uses cold water, eats seeds, accepts things prepared for him, and has intercourse with women.' 3
The references to Gośāla in the Buddhist books, though slighter, bear out the same idea of his character. Dr. Hoernle mentions Buddha's well-known abhorrence of Gośāla, and tells how Buddha classified the ascetic systems differing from his own into those whose members lived in incontinency and those which could only be condemned as unsatisfying-placing Gośāla amongst the former.
Gośāla obtained this his best-known name through having been born in a cowshed, but he is also known by another name, that of Markhali Putra, which the Jaina say was given to him because he was the illegitimate son of a monk. If there were this piteous taint in his blood it would account for his strange dual nature, his strivings, and his failure. After he left Mahāvīra, he and his followers seem to have lived in open defiance of all the laws of ascetic life, expressed or implied, and to have made their head-quarters in the premises of a potter woman in the town of Śrāvasti. There after sixteen years Mahāvira found him and exposed his real character. Gośāla had previously tried to justify himself by adopting not only
1 Sūtra Kritinga, S. B. E., xlv, p. 245. Ibid., xlv, p. 273.
s Ibid., xiv, p. 411.