Jain Spirit 2003 03 No 14

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

Page 39

HISTORY
Nuns Could Attain Liberation
Katherine Anne Harper analyses the role of women and the
existence of a female Tirthankara
CAINISM, THE OLDER OF THE TWO ENDURING Sramanic religions, historically has included both nuns and
laywomen as vital representatives of the community. The Jain order of nuns predated that of the Buddhist's by centuries. The earliest historical references to female Jain renouncers were connected to the twenty-third Tirthankara, Parshvanath, who lived during the ninth century B.C. There are, however, mythological references to at least two Jain women attaining enlightenment or salvation long before Parshvanath. The first was Marudevi, the mother of Rshabha, the first Tirthankara. She, upon seeing her enlightened son, attained the highest spiritual state of kevalajnana - she herself entered into samadhi and passed away. Paul Dundas writes, “It is particularly noteworthy that according to the Shvetambaras it is a woman, Marudevi, the mother of Rshabha, who has the distinction of being the first person of this world age to achieve liberation." Yet another example of a woman attaining the highest spiritual level is found in the story of the Jina Malli who, according to the Shvetambara sect, chose the life of a renouncer as a prelude to kevalajnana. The myths concerning Malli will be addressed later; let us now return to Parshvanath and reconstruct what we can of the role of women in his order.
Jain texts suggest that at least as early as the ninth century B.C. women with a high degree of spiritual commitment and aptitude outnumbered men with similar inclinations and abilities. According to the Kalpasutra, Parshvanath divided his community into four parts: monks, nuns, laymen and laywomen. A woman named Pushpacula was placed at the head of the women's order. Furthermore, the Kalpasutra records that the four-part sangha consisted of 16,000 monks, 38,000 nuns, 164,000 laymen and 327,000 laywomen. While the authenticity of the actual numbers may be questionable, what is immediately striking is the ratio of women to men: more than two to one. The sheer number of women alone indicate a religion in which the religiosity of women was respected and female renunciation was
encouraged. Concerned with the welfare of all humankind, it was Parsvanath who first offered an alternative to Vedic exclusives. In doing so, he afforded women the same opportunities as men and affirmed that women were capable of attaining the highest religious goal. The great teacher stressed the importance of the four vows known as the Law of the Four Restraints (chaturyama-dharma), which most likely involved abstaining from four types of activities: injury, non-truthfulness, taking what is not given and having
possessions. The effectiveness of Parshvanath's teaching is measured in the number of followers he led to enlightenment - some 2,000 ascetic women and 1,000 men. The ratios represent a time in history when a greater interest, dedication and aptitude of women for spiritual matters was recognised. It seems that Mahavir allowed women into the order from the beginning of his teaching, with his first woman disciple, Arya Candana subsequently becoming the head of his order of nuns.
The large numbers of references to women are remnants of an ascetic movement which, on the whole, defended egalitarian attitudes. In the years immediately following the time of Mahavir, women were permitted the freedom to exercise options which included entering the order and the promise of reaching the state of bliss. For a
time they too were allowed to wander freely and teach in what was a relatively liberal society. Like their male counterparts, Jain women renunciants never established communities in fixed locations, but followed the ideal of Mahavir to never live more than one day in the same village. However, eventually nuns were made to become more dependent upon their male colleagues authority. Regulations were devised that stipulated where the women were allowed to beg and what implements they could own or use. Stricter regulation of their movements
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Jain Spirit . March - May 2003
Jain Education Intemational