Jain Spirit 2002 06 No 11

Author(s): Jain Spirit UK
Publisher: UK Young Jains

Page 54

HISTORY
OwWW.DINODU.COM
CAN WOMEN ACHI
Padmanabh Jaini
contrasts the Digambara and Shvetambara views on the liberation of
women
A Digambara nun at Bahubali, Karnataka, India
HE SALVATION OR SPIRITUAL LIBERATION OF WOMEN HAS been a matter of great controversy between the two
major sects of Jainism, the Digambaras and the Shvetambaras. The former have vehemently insisted that one cannot attain moksha, emancipation of the soul from the cycles of birth and death (samasara) as a female, while the latter have steadfastly refused to claim the exclusively male access to the liberated state (Arhat or Siddha) of the soul. The beginning of the feud between the two sects, which eventually split the Jain society into two hostile camps, is itself shrouded in mystery. No one has yet been able to ascertain with any precision either the direct cause of the division or the dates of the initial controversy. Both traditions agree, however, that the final breach took place around 300 B.C. during the time of the Venerable Bhadrabahu, a contemporary of Emperor Chandragupta, the founder of the Mauryan dynasty. Since that time the two sects have refused to accept the validity of each other's scriptures; indeed, the Digambaras have even claimed
that the original words of Mahavir were irrevocably lost. In addition, the adherents of both sects refuse to recognise their rival's religion as true mendicants (muni or sadhu), setting up a debate that tears at the very fabric of the entire Jain community.
One of the major issues dividing the two sects was the acceptability of ordained persons wearing clothes. While this might seem to us moderns as a trivial issue on which to base what was to become a major sectarian dispute, the debate did mask basic
concerns in Jain soteriology that were hardly frivolous. On one point there was unanimity: the last great teacher (known by the title of Jina or spiritual victor) of their religion, Vardhamana Mahavir, who lived from 599 to 527 B.C. according to the tradition, had been a naked ascetic (acelaka sramana) and some of his early adherents had been similarly 'sky-clad' (digambara) and known as jinakalpins (similar to the Jina). But this was the extent of the consensus. The Digambaras, who went naked (nagna) following Mahavir's example, claimed that a mendicant must renounce all property or possessions (parigraha) including clothes; the only exceptions allowed were a small whisk broom (rajoharana) for brushing insects away from one's seat and a water gourd (kamandalu) for toilet purposes. They therefore accepted only naked monks as the true mendicant adherents of the Jina and regarded the Shvetambara monks, who continued to wear white clothes (sveta-ambara) after ordination, as no better than celibate laymen (brahmacar-grhastha). Nudity thus became for the Digambaras the fundamental identifying feature (munilinga) of the mendicant life. They maintained that without
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Jain Spirit . June - August 2002
Jain Education Interational