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Origin and Growth of Jaina Monachism in Karnataka
nataka
307
wandering life. The settlement of monks in monasteries faci. litated possession of vast cconomic resources including both movable and immovable property. They now erected and renovated the dilapidated Jaina monasteries, and added charity houses to them for the benefit of the Jaina ascctics as well as the sick and poor persons. The change in the conduct of the Jaina monks is clearly indicated by Indranandi. He refers in his Nilisäral to the monks who renovated decaying Jaina basadis, provided food to the ascetics and distributed charity out of their wealth. It is evident that the Jaina monks frequently evaded the cstablished rules against non-possession of property an essential prerequisite for the purity of the monk's life.
Other rules governing the conduct of the Jaina monks also became lax. All this is evident from the Almānusasana of Guņabhadra. It laments the shortage of virtuous monks and complains against the vices that had crept in the monastic life of his time. It states that the monks unable to endure hardship sought resort in the villages just as a deer runs away from the forest at the sight of the lion at night.” Somadeva too in his rašastılaka notes the paucity of the monks of mcrit. Still he encourages the Jaina laity to revere them on the ground that they (the monks) are the incarnations of the ancient monks. He advises the householders not to test the purity of monks for giving gift; the householders are purified by the mere act of giving donation. All this would suggest degradation from the original standard of the monk's conduct in the monasteries. It was possibly the chief reason why Somadeva emphasised the mere act of making gifts rather than the purity of the monk's conduct.
The transition in the mode of monk's living produced certain important consequences. Permanent residence helped the organisation of the Jaina church in Karnataka into one compact unit during the early medieval age. It is thought
1. Nitisāra, vv. 48-50, cited in N.R. Premi, op. cit., p. 487. 2. A. N. Upadhye, (ed.). A imānusāsana, v. 197. 3. Yasastilaka, pt. ii, BK viii, p. 407. 4. Ibid.
