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S. B. DEO only this, but those who even when knowing the emerg'encies that made a monk act abnormally. teased or condemned him were punished by the ācārya. Therefore, the motive behind the transgression and the tendency that led to the commitment of indiscipline was to be punished, and not the helpless victim of circumstances.
This insistence on the practice of the spirit of the law and not the letter of it is reflected in the provisos and exceptions to monastic conduct in peculiar regions as mentioned in the Brhatkalpa-Sutra-Bhāsya. For instance, in the Mahārāșțra region, people used the nīlakaṁbala in winter. The monks touring that region in that season were also allowed to use that type of kambala. In the country of Thūņā, people used clothes whose ends (daśikā) were cut, whereas reverse was the practice in the Indus region. In the Konkan region, people were accustomed to eat fruits and flowers. In all these social and geographical variations, the monks were allowed to adjust their practice with the local habits for which, however, they had to undergo prayascittas later on.
The last and the most important feature of the laws of Jaina monastic jurisprudence is their heterogenous arrangement. We have already seen that the study of the Cheyasutta.s was compulsory for those who aspired for a senior rank in the hierarchy. Their study would have been much more easy had the different transgressions been grouped under suitable categories of monk life like dress, food, study etc. On the contrary what we find in the Nihihasutta is the grouping of various acts of monk-life grouped under the categories of prāyaścittas. This, as the case stands, makes the reference to a particular transgression not very easy to find out.
And the last but not the least important point is the total absence of the mention of the background that led to the formulation of a particular rule in Jaina texts dealing with jurisprudence. What we find in the bare texts of the Chedasūtras is the abrupt, matter-of-fact, heterogeneous list of different transgressions that were to be dealt
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