Jain Journal 2006 07

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

Page 38

Chitta Ranjan Pal: Mahāmuni Jambüsvamiand Bengal
sequent generations was due to the out-break of serious dissensions and disputes within the Jaina monastic organisation, the echoes of which seem to have been heard in the Parisistaparvan.
Hemacandra, the celebrated author of the book, states that Prabhava, the successor of Jambū, had not found any competent heir to head the Jaina community after him. So he had to convert by a clever device Sayyambhava, a heretical"Spiritual genius” to his faith and had to make him the next patriarch who condensed the whole of the Jaina tenets in ten lectures which later on came to be known as the Daśavaikālika Sūtra.
From this cryptic account, one may surmise that Prabhava during his pontificate was faced by increasing number of refractory monks who probably differed from him in matters relating to monastic discipline as well as the scriptures serialized by Sudharman. So he had to recruit by clever means (not befitting a Jaina pontiff) a mentally strong and spiritually as well as intellectually advanced Brahinin house holder, Sayyambhaba to whom he handed over the welfare of the Jaina community.
The non-recognition of the four spiritual heads (i. Prabhava, ii. Sayyambhava, iii. Yaśobhadra and iv. Sambhūtavijaya) in between the last Kevalin Jainbūsvāmi and the last śruta-kevalin Bhadrabāhu by a sizeable number of monks (forerunners of the Digambaras) strengthen this view.
A perusal of the discussion made above, leads us to conclude that Jambūsvāmi, probably, was the victim of intra-monastic dissensions and feuds which had their origins, according to some scholars, since the days of Pārsvanātha and which continued unabated for centuries till the Jaina monastic organisation was bifurcated into two irreconcilable sects - the Svetāmbaras and the Digambaras. And it is for this reason, perhaps, Jambūsvāmī had been living in the memory of the posterity only as a "perpetually celebate partiarch" and the last Kevalin of the Jainas.
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