Jain Journal 1976 01

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

Page 40

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JAIN JOURNAL
Dhruvasena125 enriched West India with Jaina culture, to which as one of West India's foremost literati, he was devoted. The numerous princes 126 who occupied the throne in the following period were all enthusiastic addherents of the new religiosity with its emotional and intellectual appeal.
West India produced a mystic Jaina intellectual soteriology on its own, for the rule of the Jaina gurus in true Indian fashion.
At the time of the introduction of Jainism the dominant religion of West India consisted in the belief in functional spirits of Hinduism. Also among its forms were Phallus cults.
Jainism first made its entrance into West India under the protection of the cult as genteel soteriology of the literati. West Indian Jainism then unfolded its various potentialities by forming various schools and sects.
According to its nature, Jainism brought about a relatively national and religious regulation of life, other worldly goals and paths of salvation. It also brought about an enrichment of the emotional content of the experience of these phenomena. This was in contrast to all those essentially animistic and magical cults which were devoid of any direct ethical demands. Whatever sublimation of impulsive and emotional life occurred in West India beyond the feudual conception of honour has undoubtedly been the work of Jainism. Here too Jainism has retained the soteriology of Indian intellectuals. West Indian Jainism evinces some evolutionary trends peculiar to West India in spite of the borrowing of most of Jaina culture of North India.
The Jaina sects were many in West India. Among the larger sects existing down to the present time Tapagaccha is the oldest and largest. It was founded by Jagaccandrasuri127 during the thirteenth century at Chitor. Jaina monkdom, during the course of the centuries, underwent a strong internal transformation inasmuch as the recruitment of the monks and nuns became more and more democratic, probably under the pressure of the propagandistic competition of the sects. In the end they belonged predominantly to the lower strata.
125 Dhruvasena enriched Jaina culture in every way. Devardhi Gani Ksamasramana
was devoted to Jaina culture as is evidenced by his presidency over the Valabhi Council which reduced the Jaina Canons to writing in the beginning of the fifth
century A.D. 126 After Dhruvasena other princes of Gujarat, even those of Rajasthan, were the
adherents of Jainadharma. 127 Pattavali Samuccaya, Pt. I, p. 57, Pattavali Saroddhara, p. 154.