Sambodhi 1973 Vol 02

Author(s): Dalsukh Malvania, H C Bhayani
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 25

* EVOLUTION OF THE JAINA TREATMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS
K. K. Dixit
The inner-community differences of the modern Jainas are chiefly centred around three questions, viz.
(1) Whether the original Jaina Scriptural texts are yet intact,
(2) Whether it is proper for a monk to put on any clothing whatsoever,
(3) Whether the worship of icons is a desirable religious practice.
Thus the first two questions are answered in the negative by the Digambara sub-sect and in the affirmative by the Svetambara sub-sect; similarly, the third question is answered in the negative by the important section of Svetambaras designated Sthanakavāsin (which, it might also be noted by the way, disputes the authenticity of some 13 minor scriptural texts counted as genuine by the remaining body of Svetāmbaras). The three points of difference in question deserve consideration in a proper historical perspective. Let us take them up one by one,
On the face of it it sounds odd that a religious sect should confess that in the course of historical process it long ago came to lose possession of all its original scrlptural texts. But tbis is precisely what the Digambara sub-sect of the the Jainas seems to be doing. And yet the stand adopted by it on this score is not altogether odd. For the fact of the matter is that on almost all important theoretical questions the positions now-a-days considered to be characteristically Jaina are the end-product of a considerable long historical evolution. And in the early Jaina texts wbich alone could have been assigned the title Scripture it is the early stages of this evolution that are to be met with-and naturally. This surmise is amply confirmed by a perusal of the genuinely old portions of the texts treated as scriptures by the Svetambara sub-sect. Thus it must have been the absence in these texts of ap exposition of the classical Jaina positions on important theoretical questions that created in the mind of the latter-day Digambaras a misgiving as to the authenticity of these texts, a misgiving that in due course culminated in an actual repudiation of their authenticity. However the difficulty scented by the Digambaras could not but have been encountered even by the Svetāmbaras, but the latter came out with a diffe'rent solution of it. Thus they imagined that a considerable portion of the