Jain Legend Vol 3

Author(s): Hastimal Maharaj, Shuganchand Jain, P S Surana
Publisher: Hastimal Maharaj Shugan C Jain P S Surana

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doctrines and their holy texts went into extinction. Today not even one text of temple dwelling tradition is available. Hence this tradition of temple dwelling congregation, which gained supreme prominence and remained influential from V.N.1000 to almost V.N. 2000, has become extinct now.
Even though the temple dwelling congregation met its demise in V.N.2000, yet it left its footprints behind. The newly established attractive religious rituals by them practiced for over 1000 years by their followers have been ingrained in the minds of their followers deeply as religious activities. Therefore all these rituals, in one form or the other have been accepted by all surviving Jain traditions. In this way, even though the tradition of temple dwelling has been routed, yet its rituals foot prints and remains continue to exist even today.
Suvihita (uniform and well organized) tradition
Serious study of the history of Jainism for the period when the temple dwelling congregation was thriving and prospering reveals that; almost all the c ryas (except those following the temple dwelling congregation) having faith and practice of Jain doctrine and code of conduct prescribed therein, got together and issued a unified, agreed code of conduct, including seeking alms for food, as per the scriptures and to be followed by Jain monks. In order to project a unified code of conduct, without the discrimination of a sect or a congregation, and acceptable to all, they started calling this new code of conduct as uniform and well organized (suvihita). In this way, the remaining congregations and cryas tried to join hands to protect and keep alive the tradition, pure scripture based doctrine and right code of conduct from the onslaught of relaxations based code of conduct introduced by the temple dwelling congregation. Their unified action in this direction kept the dwindling tradition of pure scripture based code of conduct and doctrine alive and not let it go into extinction even with the growing and dominating influence of temple dwelling congregation during that period. To protect and keep intact all the monks (male and female) practicing the unified scripture based conduct together, all the rama as and rama s belonging to different congregations and gacchas were all called as belonging to Suvihita tradition. The image and influence of Suvihita tradition, instead of going into extinction actually increased to protect the code of conduct of rama as based on scriptures and fundamental Jain doctrine and to
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