Indian Antiquary Vol 59

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 165

Avoust, 1030)
A FURTHER NOTE ON THE SVETAMBARA AND DIGAMBARA SECTS 181
As for the further relationship of this word pindara, pendara, I have nothing definite to suggest. However, I should like to point once more to the Desindmamála, where in 6, 80 we read : pedda ... mahişs . kecit peddaśabdena mahiram áhuh ! Thus there seems to have existed a word pedda, 'buffalo, she-buffalo '; and an interchange between peddaand penda- (pinda-) would be nothing unheard of within the Präkfits. Possible as it would thus be to suggest that pindara, pendara were in some way connected with this name of the buffalo,' we shall prefer to make no definite assertions. And we shall rest content to think that the riddle of the name of the Pindaris has perhaps been solved in a very simple way.
A FURTHER NOTE ON THE SVETÅMBARA AND DIGAMBARA SECTS.
BY KAMTA PRASAD JAIN, M.R.A.S. In the September 1929 issue of the Indian Antiquary Mr. Puran Chand Nahar, a learned Svetämbara Jain, has expressed his ideas on the two sects of the Jains, and contends for the greater antiquity of the Svetambara sect as compared with the Digambaras. But, unfortunately, he has not supported his opinions with reliable references, and they hardly represent the true view of the facts. His conclusions, therefore, cannot be taken as the last word of "unbiassed research " on the point, and it becomes necessary to examine them in the light of the historical facts. He seems to lay great stress on the following points to prove the antiquity of the Svetambara seot :
1. That the idea of nudity or remote antiquity and the idea of the dressed or a later period " is not tenable, because, taking the period of Vedas, hardly any Pråksit literature is found existing before the Vedas, although the Prakrit, or natural language, is taken to be older than the Sanskrit, or corrected language. And because the Svetâmbara Jains hold that all the predecessors of Mahavira Tirthankara wore clothes, the idea of nudity was preached by the last Tirthankara for the first time.
2. That the ancient Jain images bear no trace of any particular sect, but belong to the undivided Jain Sangha. Besides this, a good number of such images, in the sitting posture, bear ne trace of nudity.
3. That the inferior status assigned to woman by the Digambara sect, in denying her the possibility of full spiritual emancipation, is of later origin," for, such narrow dogmas had their birth in times when & strong reaction had already set in against the broad-minded democratic religion of Buddha and Mahavira.....”
4. That those who advocated the most conservative ideas became known as the Digambaras, "and in order to establish the new theory, these Digambaras had to discard the whole of the then existing Jain canons," which are respected and recognised by the Svetâmbara sect alone, who maintain the same old principles as those taught by Mahavira.
5. That the Mathura antiquities speak for the priority of the Svetambara sect.
6. And that Digambaras hold the conservative idea, contrary to the Svetambaras, that only a Digambara Jain holding Digambara doctrines con attain nirvana, which is against the original teaching of Mahâvîra. It is owing to this conservatiem that they did not flourish during the Muhammadan period.
1. Now let us examine these points one by one. As for the first point, we should remember that it was not only in the times of Mahavira that nudity was practised in the country, but, on the contrary, it was treated with great reverence before Mahåviral and in the Vedio period itself. "The wind girdled Bachhantes," the Munayo Vatavasands, are mentioned in the Rik-Samhita (X, 136-2) and the learned Prof. Albrecht Weber regarded this as showing the greater antiquity of the Digambaras, whom he also took as referred to in the well-known accounts of the Indian Gymnosophists' of the time of Alexander the Great. |Indian Antiquary, vol, LX, p. 162
· Ibid., vol. XXX, p. 280,