Jain Journal 1976 10

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

Page 24

JAIN JOURNAL
has to be made of certain lowly callings like those of wood-gatherers (kātthāhāragā), leaf-gatherers (pattāhāragä) and grass-cutters (tuņāhāragā). These people roamed in forests. Again certain occupations like those of the professional boar-killers, fish-catchers, fowlers, hunters and the like were regarded with disapprobation because the practice of these involved commitment of violence.
This study of social hierarchy as given in the early Jaina texts will not be complete without some consideration of the institution of slavery. Two or three different modes of acquiring a slave are known :(1) prisoners of war, (ii) sale and (iii) gift or conditional sale. During the war between the father of Vasumati-Candana and king Satanika, Candana was taken prisoner and thus became a slave. She was next sold by a camel-driver to Dhanavaha, a banker of Kausambi. The sale of Sujjhasiri and Amarakumara by their respective fathers has been already narrated. The story of Sujjhasiri states that she was later given away to cowherd woman by her purchaser who had then become poor as the result of a long drawn famine in Avanti. The cowherd woman undertook to supply milk to his family. It is not clear from the account whether she received Sujjhasiri as a gift or this was a case of conditional sale.
The slaves we come across in our texts were all employed in domestic service. In the palace there were numerous maids. In well-to-do families there were five kinds of nurses to tend children, viz., wet nurse (khīra), toilet-nurse (mandana) bath-nurse (majjana), play-nurse (kilavana) and lap-nurse (anka).
Little safeguard the wretched slave-girls seemed to possess against the concupiscence of their masters. Thus the daughter of a purohita was in the service of a grocer. She became pregnant and felt the longing for flesh and groats. To procure these she sold the valuables of her master and was punished by the king for stealing. She was homeinterned till the delivery of the child who became the property of the king. The lot of the slaves was very hard. For certain lapses the nun Lakkhanavati was reborn as the maid of a hetaira. She was very handsome to look at and attracted the admiring looks of the clients of her mistress who then decided to cut off her ears, nose and lips. She was able to flee and later even to marry a rich merchant of Samkhanda. But one night the first wife of her husband thrust into her abdomen a fire-brand twice, and she succumbed to her injury. It will be interesting to know if her murderer had the right to inflict injuries on her. In other words, whether even after her marriage, Lakkhanavati continued to be considered a slave-girl. To take one more example. Mula was the wife of