Jain Journal 1979 01

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

Page 26

Evolution of Jaina Sangha
J. C. SIKDAR
(from the previous issue)
Adaptation of Jaina Sangha to environment
In course of time Jaina Sanghas may have become adapted and readapted many times as their environment changed or as they moved to a new environment. As a result many Jaina monastic orders-Svetambaras and Digambaras have organizational structures that are useless or even somewhat deleterious, but which were useful for their survival in earlier times when the Jaina monastic organization was adapted to a rather different social environment.
Because of the need for subhikṣā (navakoți śuddha āhara) and living space and propagation of religion there was a tendency for each group of monastic orders to spread out and establish itself in as many different habitats as it could reach by travelling on foot and which would support them for missionary work. This evolution from a single ancestral or parental Sangha, of a variety of forms of Jaina Sangha which spread out to different habitats since the post-Mahaviran period particularly may be called adaptive radiation of Jaina Sangha or Sanghas. It is obviously advantageous in enabling Jaina Sanghas or Ganas, or Gacchas to survive the midst of socio-economic and political turmoils. Conversely, many of the Jaina Sanghas inhabiting the same type of habitat have developed, to some extent similar, monastic structures which make them superficially alike, even though they may be but distantly related, e.g. Kharataragaccha, Tapagaccha, etc. This evolution of similar monastic structures of Jaina Sanghas adapting to similar environment may be called convergent evolution of Jaina Sangha.
68 Both Kharataragaccha and Tapagacchia have similar monastic structures on the basis of murtipuja and other monastic rules and regulations, although they differ in other respects, e.g. ascetic conduct, customs, occultism, Yaksa-Yaksipuja, etc. Similarly, the South Indian Digambara Jaina Sanghas like Mulasangha, Yapaniyasangha, Kuiccakasangha, Kasthasangha, Mathurasangha have similar monastic structures, although they differed from one another in some monastic features.