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MAY 2017
PRABUDDH JEEVAN
39
WOMAN - THE JAINA PERSPECTIVE' ENLIGHTEN YOURSELF BY SELF STUDY OF JAINOLOGY
LESSON - SIXTEEN [CONTINUED]
O Dr. Kamini Gogri The arguments brought forth by the Digambara au- of the debate, that the inferiority of women is thors to support their position that there can be no spiri- demonstrated by the fact of nuns having to show tual liberation for women are quite diverse and attack deference even to monks who may be far junior to them the question, as is typical of traditional Indian sastraic and even by the fact that they are subject to sexual argumentation, from a number of directions. As usual, harassment and assault by men. appeal is made on both sides of the debate to scrip- It is worthy of note in connection with these disputes tural authority, logical interence, linguistic interpreta- that the Svetambaras, although they steadfastly argue tion, and direct observation. And much of this argu- for the possibility of women entering the mendicant life mentation such as that recorded in several of the texts and attaining nirvana, rarely categorically refute the translated here dealing with the question of whether misogynistic claims of the Digambaras per se. the word "women" in scriptures asserting the possibil- Although they may tend to soften these claims by for ity of moksa for women really means "a man with the example, pointing out famous women from literature sexual feelings of a woman" and whether the two sects and scripture who showed great spiritual or moral agreement that a woman, no matter how wicked, can courage, or by asserting that men too may share some fall no lower than the sixth of Jainism's seven hells of the-moral defects charged to women, they seem logically implies that she can, by the same token, not generally willing to accept the negative rise to the highest spiritual state (nirvana) may seem characterizations, contenting themselves merely with baffling to the reader unfamiliar with the canons of tra- assserting that these do not in and of themselves ditional Indian debate.
preclude the possibility of moksa for all women. Some argumentation on the Digambara side derives, Interesting though this type of argumentation is for those from postulates that echo the generally misogynistic desirous of understanding the nature and development and patriarchal attitudes of the society as a whole. It is of attitudes toward gender in traditional cultures and argued for example, that women are not only physically societies, it is through their detailed and elaborate weaker than men, and hence unable, to endure the discussion of the biological and psychological aspects harsh asceticism regarded as necessary for liberation, of female gender and sexuality and their development but are intellectually, ethically, and morally inferior as of the notion of specific types of libido or sexual well. Thus Sakatayana cites, as his purvapaksa; the orientation (veda) that the jaina texts stand out as arguments that women are excessively devious and unique and of particular importance. fickle (Chapter II, #78), that they lack the intellectual, The concept of veda, sexual orientation that is not forensic, and supernatural powers of advanced male necessarily related to biological gender, appears to be spiritual adepts (#21-25), and that they lack the unique to the jaina texts in traditional India and to physical, moral, and spiritual courage of men (#85). In constitute the only consistent theoretical attempt in this several passages the general cultural attitude that culture and perhaps any premodern culture, to explain women have less control of their sexual passion than the phenomena of heterosexuality and homosexuality. men is brought forward as at Jayasena's Taparyavrtti The latter phenomenon in particular is all but ignored in (Capter IV, #4-5). Several of the authors, including the sastraic literature associated with the Hindu Sakatayana and Prabhacandra refer to what must be tradition. As is made clear from a reading of the texts seen as social factors in a patriarchally structured on the spiritual liberation of women, jaina thinkers monastic order and ambient society, rather than as understood that there were three kinds of sexual feeling, natural endowments of gender. Thus we have, the which they called striveda, pumveda, and arguments, repeated by several authors on both sides napumsakaveda, or the sexual feelings normally
