Sambodhi 1973 Vol 02

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

Page 38

32
K. K. Dixit
became an integral part of the Jaina order so long confined to monks. For now criticism will be levelled not against the life of a householder as such but against that of a non-Jaina householder-just as uptil now criticism had been levelled against the life of a non-Jaina monk. Positively speaking, schemes for an ideal conduct on the part of Jaina householders will now be formulated just as schemes for an ideal conduct on the part of Jaina monks had been formulated uptil now. On the level of pure theory the new change was reflected in importance being attached to the element of faith-understood as a bare acceptance of the truth of Jaina tenets. A non-technical employment of the term faith (raddha) had occurred in the Acaranga I Śrutaskandha when a monk had been exhorted to remain firm in that very faith which had impelled him to take leave of home, but in the stage now ensuing faith will always be spoken of in connection with a householder's meritorious qualifications. Nay, even the life of discipline-a type of life advanced beyond the life of mere faith because accompanied by certain wholesome restrains imposed by oneself on one's everyday practice-was now divided into a lower stage and an upper stage, the former supposed to be led by a specially devout Jaina householder the latter by a Jaina monk. Certainly, the triple division of ethical life into a life of faith' a life of partial discipline' 'a life of total discipline' is the most essential feature of the classical version of Jaina ethical teaching and it has been developed in hundred ways in so mony later canonical and post-canonical texts. However, what we are essentially offered in this connection is an answer to the following three questions :
(1) Why is Jaina religion superior to other religions ? (2) How should a Jaina householder lead his daily life? (3) How should a Jaina monk lead his daily life?
And still more strictly speaking, the first of these questions is not something over and above the second and third. For in the eyes of the Jaina theoreticians the superiority of Jaina religion over other religions lies partly in the superiority of the householders following Jaina religion over those following other religions and partly in the superiority of the monks following Jaina religion over those following other religions. Thus in order to grasp the essentials of Jaina ethical teaching a study has to be made of the life-Ideal of a monk as described in the Jaina texts belonging to different historical periods as also of the lief-ideal of a householder as described in those texts.
The life of a monk as such was a life of many austerities but the life of a Jaina monk seems to have been a life of specially harsh austerities.