Jain Journal 1984 07

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

Page 25

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JAIN JOURNAL
which an earlier school had eventually attained, but also partly outside it, on virgin soil ; fourth, schools,10 whose original home lay on virgin soil altogether.
By combining the results of these two systems of classification, we are able to some extent to arrange our schools of Jaina Samgha in a continuous series and to discern what the termini of this series were. At the one extremity we find Jaina communities of monks11 which were so closely attached to certain earlier schools that we have speculated whether we ought not to regard them as these earlier schools' dead trunks rather than as distinct and separate schools in their own rights. At the other extremity we find Jaina communities of monks12 which appear to have emerged in complete independence, without there being any traces of earlier schools in their backgrounds. In making a comparative study of the genesis of different Jaina schools in the Acarya periods we have to take all these various modes of their emergence into consideration.
It is evident that the problem becomes more acute as we travel down the series. In the case of those communities of monks13 whose distinct and separate existence is in doubt, it is possible that we may be relieved of the task of explaining their genesis by finding that they are merely survivals of earlier schools which have lost their vitality without having been rejuvenated by a second birth. In the case of those Jaina communities of monks14 which show no traces of earlier schools in their background, we start with no clue to indicate how their genesis have occurred.
We may observe that the communities of monks, of this latter classwhich we may call the 'unrelated’16 schools, in order to distinguish them from all those that are related16 to earlier schools in any manner and degree are in a minority.
It would appear that both in the early times and later periods the mode of emergence of the ‘unrelated' schools of Jaina monks, that is, the modes, whatever it was, in which schools of the first generation emerged ex
10 Dravida Samgha, Yapaniya Samgha, Kurcaka Samgha, etc. 11 e.g. Nirgrantha Gaccha to Tapa Gaccha, Mula Sangha, Svetapata Maha
sramana Samgha, Nirgrantha Mahasramana Samgha, Upakesa Gaccha. 12 Dravida, Yapaniya Samgha, Kurcakas. 18 e.g. 84 Gacchas and other minor Samghas. 14 e.g. Dravida Samgha, Yapaniya Samgha, Kurcaka Samgha etc. 15 e.g. Dravida Samgha, Yapaniya Samgha, Kurcaka, etc. are unrelated schools.
Nirgrantha to Tapagaccha, Lonka to Terapanthi, of the Svetambaras, Mula Samgha to Deva Gana, Sena Gana, Balatkara Gana and its Sakhas, Kastha Samgha and its Sakhas of the Digambaras, are all related schools.