Jinamanjari 1996 04 No 13

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

Page 65

What is so fascinating about the story is the thinlydisguised assertion that the one small conceit harboured by Mahabali, despite powerful motives and ascetic exertions, resulted in his enduring one last life as a woman. On the subject of Mahabali's ambitions to observe longer fasts, Nalini Balbir writes, "This had a double effect: it explained the rebirth as a woman (because the ascetic resorted to perfidy and lie) but also the destiny as a future Jina since asceticism is recorded among the twenty causes leading to Jinahood." Hence, Malli was the exception to the karmic rules of rebirth that a Jina must not be a female and that a woman is not endowed with
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samyaktva (the proper view of reality) at birth.73 It must be noted that Jains, regardless of the sect, believe that human vices such as cheating and deceit cause rebirth as a woman. It cannot be determined if Malli was a purely mythological character or if she was an actual historical person, but there is every possibility that Malli was a real person, or at least, was representative of the various women who reached kevalajnana. The story of Malli then became unique and a religous tradition has been recorded that female spirituality results in the state of bliss. The tale of her previous life as a religious, but slightly dubious, ascetic king was probably an attempt to obfuscate or diffuse any notions that females had spiritual powers. While Digambaras refuted the story of Malli altogether, Svetambaras equivocated by explaining that becoming a tirthankara for a woman was unusual and hence, it was described as one of the ten unexpected things. 74
The ambiguous positions concerning the stories of Malli and the debates on clothing can be viewed as attempts to obscure and deny a woman's powers, rights and authority, not just in religious matters, but in all aspects of life. She was denied the opportunity to make her own choices. At the heart of the story of Malli's enlightenment is the remembrance of a time, perhaps dating to the pre-Vedic period, when the
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