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Jaina Community - A Social Survey
ments which either denounce or praise the female sex. Naturally in each case a certain view is expressed about women after taking into account their actions in particular circumstances and accordingly a generalisation is made about their good or bad character and their healthy or evil influence and the extent to which freedom may be given to them in various sorts of activities. Thus it is said about the women that they are faithless, ungrataful, treacherous, untrustworthy and strict control must be kept over them. In the voice of Manu the Jaina texts state that a woman, when a child must be kept under the control of her father, when married under her husband and when a widow under her son; thus a woman is never allowed to live independently.166 In connection with the thoughts of a woman the Pārsvanātha Charitra of Bhāvadeva Sūrī says that 'the wise ones know how much sand there is in the Ganges, and how much water in the ocean, they know the dimensions of a great mountain, -- but the thoughts of a woman they cannot fathom'.167 Free and careless association with the inmates of the harem is considered to be a source of danger to the king. It is stated that the entrance of a king into the house of a woman is like the entrance of a frog into a serpant's hole.168 Several instances are given to illustrate how kings are sometimes assassinated by women with devices of their own.169 As regards the duty of men towards women the former are advised that it is always risky to educate the latter too much.170 Further, we are told that women may have freedom as much as they like in the discharge of their duties towards their husbands and children, but must not interfere in matters which properly belong to men's sphere, their minds being extremely fickle and superficial, like a drop of water on a lotus leaf. No one who accepts the participation of woman in activities other than domestic duties can thrive for long, being like a tree fallen into the current of a river. And it is under a man's control that a woman achieves her desired end, like a sword in the grip of a man.171 Acharya Amitagati's Subhashitaratnasandoha, which is considered important from the point of view of Jaina ethics, treats the female body as a sum of all impurity and hence in its opinion the woman is the treasury of all sufferings,' 'the bolt barring the city of heaven, the path to the dwelling of hell,' 'the axe for the pleasant grove of piety, the hoar-frost for the lotus of virtues, the root of the tree of sins,
