Mahavira and his Teaching

Author(s): C C Shah, Rishabhdas Ranka, Dalsukh Malvania
Publisher: Bhagwan Mahavir 2500th Nirvan Mahotsava Samiti

Page 281

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BUDDHA PRAKASH
going naked, the BỊhatkalpasūtrabhās ya states that the first and the last Tīrthařkara insisted on nudity whereas the intervening ones allowed the option of wearing clothes, the Buddhist text Anguttaranikā ya calls the niganthas ahırka or without the sense of shame3 implying that they remained naked, and the Vişnupurāna mentions both the naked and the clothed followers of the Jaina order.4 Thus it is clear that nudity as the symbol of complete detachment from the world, was regarded as the highest ideal of conduct from the time of Mahāvīra and many followed it as the core of the Jinakalpa. The view that this practice originated with Sivabhūtı in the first century A.D. does not carry conviction.
Both the Digambara and the śvetāmbara versions of the split being tendentious and unconvincing, it follows that its genesis should be traced in the very process of the evolution of the Jaina order from the sixth century B.C. onwards. At the time of Mahāvīra, in the sixth century B.C., there was a tendency among some ascetic orders to equate physical abnegation and corporeal suffering with the pursuit of spiritual liberation or emancipation from the cycle of being. Often the spiritual attainment 1. Ācārāngasūtra, VI, 3, 6.
vi za afafas TET U ficar o tai 293, Ibrd, VIII, 4, 53,
अदुवा अचेले 2. BȚhatkalpasūtrabhāşya, ed. Muni Punyavijaya, Vol VI, verse 6369
आचेल्लको धम्मो पुरिमस्स य पच्छिमस्स य णिजस्स ।
मज्झिमगाण जिणाण होति अचेलो सचेलो वा। 3. Anguttaranakaya, X, 8, 8.
अहिरिका भिक्खवे निग्गण्ठा Vişnupurâņa, III, 18, 10. दिग्वाससामय धर्मो धर्मोऽय बहुवाससाम् । Daśavarkālikasūtra, VI, 19-20. जं पि वत्थ व पाय वा कबल पायपुछणं । तं हि संजमलज्जट्ठा धारति परिहरंति य ।। न सो परिग्गहो वुत्तो नायपुत्तेण ताइणा। मुच्छा परिग्गहो वुत्तो इइ वुत्तं महेसिणा ।।