Jinamanjari 1996 04 No 13

Author(s): Jinamanjari
Publisher: Canada Bramhi Jain Society Publication

Page 59

with their obsessive concern with renunciation, withdrawal from the secular social universe, and avoidance of the sensual life, the texts and sermons of Buddhism and Jainism often stress so virulently negative a view of women -- particularly the female anatomy -- as to make even the gynophobic elements in most Hindu texts seem rather mild.41
Time and space preclude a lengthy analysis of the roles and contributions of women in Buddhism. The reader is referred to but a few of the many excellent studies on this subject.42 Suffice to say, Shakyamuni, the founder of Buddhism, at first did not permit the ordination of women.43 From the time of his first sermon at Sarnath, he accepted monks, but not women-as-nuns. His original intention was to found an order of celibate monks for the propagation of his teachings. 44 In time, male and female lay followers joined his sangha and reluctantly, after some five years of preaching,45 Buddha, submitting to social pressures, finally allowed women to renounce their earthly ties and become nuns.46
Jainism, the older of the two enduring sramanic religions, historically has included both nuns and laywomen as a vital part of the community. The Jaina order of nuns predated that of the Buddhists by centuries. 47 The earliest historical references to female Jaina renouncers were connected to the twenty-third tirthankara, Parshvanatha, who lived during the ninth century B.C.E. There are, however, mythological references to at least two Jaina women attaining enlightenment or salvation long before Parshvanatha. The first was Marudevi, the mother of the first tirthankara named Rshabhanatha, who upon seeing her enlightened son, attained the highest spiritual state of kevalajnana, she herself entered into samadhi and passed away. 48 Paul Dundas writes, "it is particularly noteworthy that according to the Svetambaras it is a woman, Marudevi, the mother of Rsabha, who has the distinction of