Jinamanjari 1999 09 No 20

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

Page 16

In this life or in the next One's actions cannot go unescaped.
Modern scholars therefore point out that the Jaina doctrine of karma occupies a unique position in the philosophical thought. They explain that karma is born of pudgala ( matter); it is extremely fine and subtle and associates with soul. Its psychic state has the property of samvara (inflow) and nirjară (shedding). This comparatively inflexible and particularly mechanical law adduces that karmas can be exhausted through physical austerities, the tapa being an important element which could expiate evil karma ensured that the Jaina karma doctrine has no relevancy of fatalism. And this 'tapa element of the Jainas became the source of prāyascitta in Hinduism and Hindu Law.:29
The Ganadharas. His Disciples
Reformed and reshaped Jain tenets in the propagation of religion and philosophy by Mahavira must have conceived a lots of theoretical views expressed by him, inside and outside the church in support of his own tenets and against other existing thoughts. It is said that they did not get recorded in the canonical literature. However, Mahavira's eleven Gañadharas are said to be the equivalent to the 14 Pūrvadharas. 30
Indrabhuti Gautama was the first of the Ganadharas. His two younger brothers - Vāyubhuti and Agnibhuti; and Arya Vyaktā, Sudharma, Manditaputra, Mauryaputra, Akampita, Acalabhadra, Metrya and Prabhasa were the other ten Ganadharas of Mahavira. They were said to have understood what was preached by their master and import the preaching by suttas strung together in a systematic arrangement in sections and chapters, in order to communicate to the lay-votaries. The period of these eleven Gañadharas may thus be considered as the period of the systemization of Mahavira's teachings into philosophical classification.31
Bhadrabāhu I (433-357 B.C.E.) was the last of the Pontiffs in the order who had inherited the entire knowledge as preached by Mahavira through oral communication continued to have learnt all the Jain Scripture - the fourteen Purvas - which are said to have been transmitted from the time of Mahavira. Later Pontiffs were left with only ten parts of the Purva due to the migration of Bhadrabahu to the