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Satya Ranjan Banerjee: Jain Society in the ReignofJain Kings
In the Dasakumāracarita', Dandin (7th cent. A.D.) made a reference to a Jaina convent where a Jain mendicant of miserable look was sitting under an Aśoka tree. This shows that there were caityas in different parts of the country for the Jain mendicants to stay or to pass their nights.
In the 7th century A.D. at the time of Harṣavardhana (606 - 647 A.D.), the Digamnara Jains were not held in high esteem, at least, in the Northern India. This piece of information we gather from the Harṣa-carita of Bāņa. In that book there is a reference to the Jain asceties walking naked and carrying peacock feathers to sweep insects out of their path. It is said there that the sight of a naked Jaina ascetic is a very bad omen (abhimukham ājagāma sikhi-picchalañchano nagnāṭakah)2.
The same idea is also expressed by Visakhadatta in the 8th - 9th centuries A.D. in the fourth act of his Mudrārākṣasa. It is said there that the sight of a Kṣapanaka is said by Amatya Rākṣasa to be an evil
omen.
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This idea about the Digambara Jains was also found till the time of Madhavācārya (13th 14th cent. A.D.) who in his Sarvadarśana-samgraha (Arhata-darśana) recorded the same idea when he said-luncitāḥ picchika-hastāḥ pāṇipātra-Digambarāḥ).
This trend of thought was also in vogue even in the 10th / 11th centuries A.D. In the Caryāgiti3, also known as Dohākoṣa, specimens of old Bengali, there are some passages which describe the position of the Jain sadhus (monks), particularly of the Digambaras, in a society. Saraha, the auther of the text, describes a Digambara saint as follows:
diha-nakkhajje malina vese naggala hoi a upāṭṭia kese / khavanehi jāna viḍambiya vese appanu vāhia mokkha uese //
1. Dasakumaracarita of Kale's edition, second chapter of the Uttarapiṭhikā, p. 73ff. 2. Harṣacarita 5th Chapt. p. 20 of P.V. Kane's edition. See his Introduction p. xxxviii.
Jain Education International
3. MM Haraprasad Sastri, Hajar Bacharer Purana Banlabhāṣāva Bauddha Gan 0 Doha, Calcutta, 1916.
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