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CHAPTER V ORIGIN AND GROWTII OF JAINA MONACHISM
IN KARNATAKA
Jaina monachism means the collective life of the monks and nuns organised at a fixed place where they live together under one authority for spiritual liberation. It appears to be the most important development in Karnataka during early medieval times.
The earlier Jaina monks led a wandering life throughout the year except the four months of the rainy season when they lived at a fixed abode. The early texts of both the Svetāmbaras and the Digambaras frankly recommend solitary life for the Jaina ascetics, who aspired to attain salvation. The Mūlācāra and the Pravacana sāra, which were composed roughly in the beginning of the Christian era, oppose the permanent habitation of monks at one place for a long time. The former states that the monk should stay in a deserted house or under a tree or on burial grounds or in caves. They are further ordained to avoid such places as were especially built for them and were likely to arouse their passions and present obstacles in the path of spiritual liberation.
The transition from solitary wandering to settled life in Jaina monasteries and Jaina basadis was a striking development in thc history of Jainism in Karnataka. The Jaina epigraphs, which record donation for the erection of monasteries and temples, show that the practice of permanent serilement of the Jaina monks in monasteries had begun in thc last quarter of the 4th century. In 370 the Ganga king Madhava converted the Kumarapura village into a freehold for the use of the monks who probably lived in the monastery attached to 1. C.A.N. Upadhye, (ed.), Pravacanasära, Introd. p. xxii. 2 Malacára, 1, 21, 22, cited in S.B. Deo, op. cit., p. 342. 3. Ibid. 10.38, p. 342.
