Jaina System of Education

Author(s): Debendra Chandra Das Gupta
Publisher: Bharti Mahavidyalaya

Page 57

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LECTURE V
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They were trained, encouraged and cheered up in their helpfully useful work of charity and popular benevolence to society
The Jaina fathers were extremely sympathetic in their attitude to women and admitted them freely into their Order, no matter whether the candidates for admission were royal consorts, members of the aristocracy, and women belonging to the common run of society There was not only equality but also ascendency and superiority of women to men in Jaina India,—a fact which is clear from the rather jarring note of protest from Dr Hemacandra, the great Jaina father who warns men to beware of women and who emphasizes the dependency of men to women in all phases of life in infancy, in youth and in old age
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Like the Buddhist nuns, their Jaina sisters held a subordinate position in the religious Order, though we do not have at our disposal, elaborate and systematic code regulating the inferior position of the Jaina nuns and their relationship The nunnery of the Jainas was affiliated to the monastery and the Jaina nuns could almost rise to the position of a head of the community of nuns under an Arhat Thus nuns Brāhmīsundari,15 Āryāyākınī,10 Puspaküla, and Candrabāla and Salasa Revati were heads of the community of Jaina nuns under the Arhats Rsabha, Aristanemi, Pārśva and Mahāvīra respectively We do not have any authentic evidence if the nuns ever reached the status of Arhats or Siddhas The geographical factors exerted a powerful influence on the selection of sites for the Jaina nunneries We again see here the influence of location, topography, rivers, soil, flora, fauna, and transportation system in the selection of sites for the nunneries The Jaina nunneries existed at Campā,18 Mithila,10 Rājagrha," Śrāvast1,21 Bārava122 (Dvārakā), and in Kammasadhamma in the Kuru kingdom 23
Tiisastiśalāka-pui usa-Caritra, vol II, ti
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14 Hemacandra Jhonson, PhD, p 298
15 Kalpasútia, vol I, ti by Heimann Jacobi, p 278
16 Ibid, Loc Cit
17. Ibid, p 274
The Antagadadasão And Anuttai ovavāiyā Dasão, tr by L D Barnett, MA, p 98, p 100 19 Ibid, p 24 Ibid, p 97
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21 The Kathākosa, ti by C H Tawney, p 13
22
The Antagadadasão And Anuttarovavãiyā Dasão, p 84 23. Psalms of the Early Sisters, p 57.
by Helen M