Some Aspects of Jainism in Eastern India

Author(s): Pranabananda Jash
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publisher's Pvt Ltd New Delhi

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Twenty-Four Tirtharkaras and Their Activities and Teachings
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unclad and the other leaning towards the line chalked out by Pārsvanātha. This difference in the outlook was probably the chief reason for the culmination in the organisation. On the other hand, there is another tradition according to which Bhadravāhu, a contemporary of Candragupta Maurya, during the time of his leadership a samine took place in Magadha, and for that reason a part of the community, numbering twelve thousand, went with him to south India. The remaining twelve thousand lived in Magadha under the leadership of Sthulabhadra,107 who convened a Council at Pāțaliputra for preserving the canonical literature. The Pāțaliputra Council collected the Anga texts; eleven in number. The twelfth Anga, containing fourteen pūrva texts, was found missing, but Sthulabhadra was not able to reconstruct it from memory. The famine over, Bhadravahu returned with his fellow brethren, but he refused to accept the proceedings of the Pāšaliputra Council as valid. Moreover, their brother-monks at Pāšaliputra were not as rigid as themselves in the observance of vows, etc.; and thus schism was inevitable among themselves.
Rapson believes that it was about 300 BC "the great schism originated which has ever since divided the community into two great sects-the Svetāmbaras andthe Digambaras,”108 But the final separation between the two communities is, no doubt: reported not to have taken place before AD 79 or 82; but the list of teachers and schools in the Kalpa-sūtra and the numerous inscriptions from Mathura, which date mostly from the time of the later Kuşāņa kings, i.e. after Ad 78, afford sufficient proof that the Svetāmbara community was not only established but had become sub-divided into smaller sects at an earlier period. This is especially clear from the frequent mention of nuns in the Mathura inscriptions; for it is only the Svetāmbaras who give women admission into the order."169 It is thus clear that the split between the Digambaras and the Svetāmbaras was of gradual evolution, spread over a long period and culminating in the post-Kuşāņa or the Gupta period.
However, both the sub-sects of the Jainas have almost all the philosophical doctrines in common, but they differ in subtle matters of doctrine and cult practices and each of these two sub-sects claims precedence over the other. According to the Cigam the omniscient do not take food; monks cannot have any garment;110 women cannot attain salvation in that very existence because of their sex; there can be no place for nuns in the Jaina monastic