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HISTORY OF JAINA MONACHISM
MONKS AND NUNS:
(a) Attitude Towards Women in General:
Right in the earliest portions of the Canon, woman is looked upon as something evil that enticed innocent males into a snare of misery. They are described as "the greatest temptation",185 "the causes of all sinful acts", 196 "the slough",197 "demons",198 etc. Their bad qualities are described in exaggerated terms. Their passions are said to destroy the celibacy of monks "like a pot filled with lac near fire."19 The Tandulavaicārika-Prakirṇaka200 gives as many as ninety-three disqualifications of a woman. It may be noted that this attitude was not peculiar only to the Jainas but was shared even by the Buddhists and the Brahmanical systems as well. Anyway, between. the Svetämbaras and the Digambaras the former were more sympathetic than the latter, for they, unlike the Digambaras, held the view that women could get moksa in the same birth.
(b) Occasions of Contact:
This being the approach towards woman in general,201 a monk was to be aloof from the contact with a nun, and vice versa, and both were not to do anything which would give a cause for suspicion to the public. It was laid down that in a town with only one gate, if monks and nuns happened to see one another at places of easing nature, then both of them had to undergo punishment for that. Only for looking at each other at such place involved the undergoing of expiatory penance, and seeing each other at close quarters, recognising and saluting to each other, made the nun liable for higher punishments. It was feared that people were likely to suspect the purpose behind
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195. Acar. SBE, XXII, p. 48.
196. Ibid., p. 81.
197. Uttar. II, 17.
198. Ibid., VIII, 18.
199. Stkṛ. 1, 4, 1, 26 (pp. 274-75).
200. pp. 50a-51b: Fanciful etymologies of the different synonymns for woman They were looked upon as chains: Devendra the commentator says:
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-Uttara. comm. SBE, XIV, p. 24, fn., 3. Also Avaśyakasutra, comm. p. 508a, where they are called "mokṣapathargalāḥ" "chains that hinder one's progress towards liberation."
201. "The ascetics, those erratic and abnormal examples of the 'variational tendency' ... They knew that every natural impulse of a woman (woman is more in harmony with Nature than man) is the condemnation of asceticism. All true lovers of the artificial and perverse find woman repulsive."
-HAVELOCK ELLIS, Man and Woman, p. 441.
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