More Light On Yapaniya Sangha

Author(s): A N Upadhye
Publisher: A N Upadhye

Page 2

MORE LIGHT ON THE YĀPANIYA SANGHA,
A JAINA SECT*
BY A. N. UPADHYE
The religious and ascetic organisation headed by Nigantha Nātaputta, or Mahāvīra, was led eariler by Pārsva; and Mahāvīra was a Pāsā vaccijja, i. e., he belonged to the line of Pārsva. Still the Uttarādhyayana, XXIII, depicts a situation in which the pupils of Pārsva and of Mahāvīra try to patch up some of the differences in their ascetic practices. It is such differences that might have created schisms and sects in the Jaina church in due course of time.
The Samāgamasutta mentions that Buddha had already scented dissensions in the Jaipa church soon after the death of Mabāvīra, or · Nigantha Nātaputta, and exhorted his disciples not to fall a victim to
such schismatic impulses. During the life-time of Mahāvīra, the doctrinal differences like the Bahurata started by Jamāli, the son-inlaw of Mahāvīra, and Jivapradesa by Tisyagupta etc. were already thete. After the Nirvāņa of Mahāvīra, possibly due to the migration of certain monks to the South, there arose the division of Svetām bara and Digambara by laying more or less stress on certain ascetic practices which must have been there in the church even earlier. The schisms started by Aryāsādha (214 years after the Nirvāṇa of Mahāvīra ) etc. did not survive long to perpetuate any division in the church.
From the Mathurā inscriptions of the early centuries it is clear that gscetic groups like Gana, Kula, Sākā and Sambhoga were already current in the Jaina church. Among the Digambaras there were such
* This paper was submitted to the 29th International Congress of Orientalists, Paris, and read by me at the Southeast Asia (Indian ) Section on July 17, 1973. 1 For earlier studies see : Indian Antiquary, VII, p. 34 ; H. LÜDERS : E. I., IV.
p. 338 ; N. PREMI : Jaina Hitaisi, XIII, pp. 250-75; A. N. UPADHYE : Journal of the University of Bombay, I. vi, pp. 224 ff. ; N. PREMI : Jaina Sahitya aura Itihāsa, 2nd ed., Bombay 1956, pp. 56 1., 155 f., 521 f.; P. B. DESAI : Jainism in
South India, Sholapur, 1957, pp. 163-66, etc. 2 Nalinaksh DATTA : Early History of the Spread of Buddhism and Buddhist
Schools, p. 200. 8 E. LEUMANN : Die alten Berichte von den Schismen der Jaina, I. S., XVII, pp..
91-135. 4 Dr. HOERNLE quoted in South Indian Jainism, pp. 25-27.
See Viseşāvašyukabhāsya, Gāthās 2304-2548, ? [ Annals, B. O. R. I. ]