Jain Journal 1974 04

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 93

APRIL, 1974
231
bars them from some professions, e.g., agriculture, and 'has thrust them into commerce, and especially into its least elevating branch of moneylending. Most of the money-lending in Western India is in the hands of the Jainas, and this accounts in a great measure both for their unpopularity and for their wealth.40 A remarkable institution of the Jainas, due to their tender regard for animal life, is their asylums for old and diseased animals, the piñjarāpoles, where they are kept and fed till they die a natural death.
6. History of Jainism
The history of the Jaina church, in both the Svetambara and Digambara sections, is chiefly contained in their lists of patriarchs and teachers and in legends concerning them. The oldest list of patriarchs of the Svetambaras is the Sthavirāvalī in the Kalpa Sutra, which begins with Mahavira's disciple Sudharman and ends with the 33rd patriarch Sandilya or Skandila. Of most patriarchs only the names and the gotra are given ; but there is also an expanded list from the 6th, Bhadrabahu, down to the 14th, Vajrasena, which adds more details, viz., the names of the disciples of each patriarch and of the schools and branches (gana, kula, and śākhā founded by, or orginating with, them. As some of these details are also mentioned in old Jaina inscriptions of the 2nd cent. A.D. found at Mathura, 41 this part at least of the Jaina tradition is proved to be based on historical facts. Further, the more detailed list of patriarchs shows that after the 6th patriarch a great expansion of Jainism took place in the North and N.W. of India. 42 Beyond the details mentioned, we have no historical records about the patriarchs ; but such legends as were known about them down to Vajrasena have been combined in Hemacandra's Parisişta Parvan into a kind of continuous narrative.43 For later times there are lists of teachers (gurvāvali, pattāvali)44 of separate schools, called gaccha which give a summary account from Mahavira down to the founder of the gaccha in question,
42
Stevenson, 41. 41 See Buehler, Epigr. Ind., i (1892), 371 ff., 393 ff.
It is, however, curious that another tradition states: 'In India after the time of the Nanda kings the law of the Jinas will become scarce (Paumacariya, lxxxix, 42). Perhaps this refers more specially to Magadha and the adjoining countries, here, where, under the reign of the Mauryas, Buddhism soon attained the position
of a popular religion, and must have become a formidable rival of Jainism. 43 See the contents of the work given in the introduction to the text in the Bibl. Ind.
edition. 14 The oldest gurvavali known is that by Munisundara, A.D. 1410, ed. Benares,
1905.