Book Title: Lord Mahavira Vol 03
Author(s): S C Rampuria
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati Institute

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Page 57
________________ Lord-Mahavira The discipline of Brahmachari37 does not include any rule regarding sex-relationship. But one curious rule is included there and it is this “If a Brahmachari does not look at a naked woman, he obtains the beauty that is in medium.". This is a rule purely for materialistic benefit. The beauty of a woman may help the Brahmachari in his further years to enjoy more and more carnal pleasures, otherwise the beauty of a maiden is not needed. This is no injunction against sexual intercourse. We find lapses of pupils with the wives of their masters and the sin was considered so trivial that it could be expiated by the recitation of a few mantras.38 A sacrificial ritual presided over by such a priest required a pair to be united within the sacrificial ground." It appears quite certain that strict celebacy was not a part of discipline of a Brahmachari. When Vardhaman Mahâvîra appeared on the historical scene; he found sex-relationship completely shattered. What was more intolerable to him was the state of complete degeneration in the whole of Northern India brought by a foreign ideology of violence and exploitation. Woman who is equal partner of man was being exploited for the lust of man. She had been reduced to the status of slavery to this extent that she was also taken prisoner in war and publically auctioned like a Chattel. The case of Chandanabala is in point. She along with her mother was taken prisoner after her father Dadhivahana, King of Champa, was killed in battle. The conquerer Satanika, king of Vatsas wanted to rape the chastity of her mother who instantaneously committed suicide on the spot. Chandanabala was publicly auctioned. 40 After this event Mahâvîra attained purest knowledge. His first sermon also included the fifth vow of Brahmacharya along with fourfold vows of Parsva, i.e. Non-Violence, Truth, Non-stealing and non-Attachment or Aparigraha. It was this historical and social setting that led Mahâvîra to specifically enunciate the vow of Brahmacharya to be followed by Chaturvidhasangha. Hermann Jacobi maintains that men of upright disposition and of quick understanding would not go astray by observing the four vows literally i.e. by not abstaining from sexual intercourse. There was decay of the morals of the monastic order. 42 Jacobi did not sufficiently pay heed to the consequences of the vows of

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