Jain Journal 1982 10

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

Page 36

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JAIN JOURNAL
changed her tactics and offered to go with Pradyota into his harem if the latter built a strong fortress around Kausambi and installed her young son Udayana on his legitimate throne as an independent ruler. This done, she went to the assembly of Mahavira, where Pradyota also was sitting, and expressed her desire to become a Jaina nun with the consent of Pradyota. Pradyota, too, under the pious influence of the Master, turned his mind to better thoughts and, full of remorse, gave the necessary consent not only to Mrgavati but to some of his own queens also to be initiated into the order of Jaina nuns at the hands of Mahavira.12
Jaina literature has recorded the names and accounts of several Jaina nuns and lay women who have contributed to the progress of knowledge and the Jaina faith. They were known for their learning and intelligence. The seven sisters of Sthulabhadra (about 150 years after Mahavira's nirvāņa), Yaksa and others, were known for their feats of memory; all of them became Jaina nuns. Arya Vajra, who flourished in the early centuries of the Christian era, was given over to a Jaina saint when he was but a boy six years old, and was left to the care of some Jaina nuns who taught him scriptures etc. and trained him in such a way that the boy ultimately turned out a great Jaina Acarya (teacher). But more than any other nun, the contribution of Yakini Mahattara deserves special notice. Haribhadra-suri was a Brahmin scholar, well versed in the śāstras (scriptures), who declared that he would accept as guru the person who defeated him in argument, and whose speech he could not explain or understand. It was a leader (Mahattara) of Jaina nuns, Yakini by name, who defeated him and converted him to the Jaina faith.13 The greatness of Yakini can be understood if only one realizes the contribution of the versatile scholiast Haribhadra-suri to Indian literature and the reform initiated by him in the Jaina sect. Haribhadra wrote on ethics, yoga, logic and rituals, as also wrote commentaries on older texts, composed story works and reformed the Jaina church by vehemently opposing the monks who adopted caitya-vāsa (residence in shrines) or kept money etc. It was not an easy task to defeat such a dialectician in argument and convert him to such an extent that he should take special, pride in calling himself yäkini-mahattarā-sūnu (son of the great Jaina nun Yakini). She must have a genius and must have contributed a good deal to the training of Haribhadra-suri (died c. 720 A.D.).
12 Avasyaka Curni, pp. 88 ff. 18 'Haribhadra-suri-Prabandha' in Prabandha-kosa of Rajashekhara, Singhi Jaina
series ; 'Life of Haribhadra-suri' in the Prabhavaka-caritra of Prabhacandra, Nirnaya Sagara Press; also Singhi Jaina Series. An earlier account is available in the unpublished Kahavali of Bhadreshvara-suri.
www.jainelibrary.org,