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HISTORY OF JAINA MONACHISM
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Exceptions to the above conditions are also found as in the case of Subhadrā17 who renounced the world even against the wish of her husband (akāmaë), and in the story of Queen Padmavatia of Campă who became. a nun when she was pregnant but separated from her husband at that time.
Church Administration:
A nun was called 'bhikkhuni', 'nigganthi', 'sāhuni' or 'ajja'. The texts of the Angas give the same general rules of moral discipline as they do for the monks. But the rules regarding their period of probation, their confirmation, their rise to different officers, their designations and duties and the rules which governed the details of group-life among nuns are not to be found so exhaustively enumerated as in the Chedasútras and Niryuktis which are later than the Angas.
The Angas simply refer to groups of nuns under a head-nun and the 36,000 nuns of Mahavira are said to have lived under Candanā18 (Candanäppamuhä). The term signifying the chief of the nuns-as the ācārya in the case of monks-was perhaps Pavattiņi' (Pravartini). The ācārya himself had to look after the nuns, and the Sthänänga expressly states that one of his duties was to take proper care of the nuns.19 The same text refers to 'Khuddiä' (Kṣullikā) which signified a young nun who had as yet not attained any responsible post in the church hierarchy. Thus, the Añgas fail to give any complete picture of the actual working of the order of nuns.
It is, however, in the Chedasūtras-especially the Kalpa, Vyavahāra and Nisitha-and the Niryuktis, that a somewhat better picture of the internal working of the order of the nuns is available.
Before entering into a discussion of various officers in the order of nuns, it should be noted that the nuns as a whole were always treated on an inferior basis in relation to the monks. It is said that "a monk of three years' standing (paryaya) may become the upadhyaya of a nun of thirty years' standing; and a monk of five years' standing can become the upădhyāya of a nun of sixty years' standing" 20 That the nuns were under stricter control than the monks is revealed in the remarks, "the Acarya, Upadhyaya and the Pravartini-these three are the protectors of the nuns",21
17. Niryä., p. 51.
17a. Uttar., Tikā, 9, p. 132a.
18. Kalpasūtra, SBE., XXII, p. 267.
19. Aryikāpratijägarako', comm. p. 244b; Vav. 3, 12.
20. Ibid., 7, 15-16; Inferiority of Buddhist nuns in their Church: See Cullavagga X, 1, 4, where it is stated that a nun even of a hundred years' standing should bow down to a monk who has quite recently been initiated.
21. Vav. 3, 12.
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