Jain Journal 1976 01

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

Page 42

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JAIN JOURNAL
The wandering Jaina monks must have appeared very early as benefactors in ancient tribal areas of India among the tribes, Bhils130, etc. The genuine Jainistic missions in these territories began in about thirdfourth century A. D. and were officially established in the fourth century A.D.
As was usual, the king in the interest of administration and of domestication of his subjects welcomed a holy man as a Guru131, e.g. Siddhasena Divakara at Ujjain, from the neighbouring land. The missionary was a representative of pure trantristic Jainadharma. After him the Jaina mission no longer had to compete with the reactions and struggles of other sects there. At the time Madhyapradesa, Rajsthan and a large part of Gujarat were won over to Jainism, which remained until the Islamic conversion of the western border of India, then these missions were again destroyed by the Islamic onslaught.
It is to be noted that Suri or Acarya132 was first the name for the superior of a Jaina Sangha or Gana or Gaccha of the Svetambaras. Later, as a form of courtesy, each fully ordained monk was so named. The Jainistic establishment at the beginning progressed in quite usual way. However, the power position of some of the monastio superiors mounted to such an extent that corresponded to the pastoral nature of the land. The political structure fell apart into small principalities. Like the bishops of the European occident in the time of the migrations of the nations the monastic superiors here held the single, rationally organized power in their own hands. The education of superiors was accordingly spiritual as well as temporal133.
For the disciplined this new teaching of Jainism signified the restoration of celibacy and the devaluation of trantristic estatic magic practice134 which were forbidden for the monks of the virtuous Jaina sect. It shifted the point of gravity of monastic piety from meditation and
180 Samantabhadra, the first Acarya of Vanavasi Gaccha lived in the forest and
propagated Jainadharma among the tribal people, such as, the Bhils, and others.
Pattavali Samuccaya Pt. I, pp. 48, 151, 161. 131 Siddhasena Divakara introduced tantristic Jainadharma at Ujjain by converting
its King Vikrama to Jainadharma. Pattavali Samuccaya, pp. 7-8. 182 It is now the practice in the Svetambara sects to confer the title of Acarya or Suri
on the head of the Sangha. 133 An Acarya should possess the following qualifications, viz., fivefold acara : jnana,
darsana, caritra, tapa, viryacara, balance of mind and intellect (Dasavalkalika,
9.16). See also Chedasutras (3.7), Avasyaka Niryukti, v. 995. 134 Some Acaryas like Jagaccandra Suri, etc., reformed Jaina Sangha when it fell into
moral laxity and tantricism. Pattavali Samuccaya, Pt. I, pp. 57, 154, 170.