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40 : Sramaņa, Vol 62, No. 1 January-March 2011
a lay observance. Jaina doctrine holds that only renunciates can maintain perfect and complete morality, or even a version of it, in the form of the mahāvrata (Great Vows); laypeople can only hope for an approximation of these in the form of the aņuvrata (Lesser Vows).
The posaha gives the laity an opportunity to live, at least morally, as monks for a defined period of time:
The Venerable One spoke thus: "There are some followers of śramaņas who have made this declaration: we cannot submit to the tonsure, renounce the life of a householder and enter the monastic state, but we shall strictly observe the Posaha on the fourteenth and eighth days of each fortnight, (on the new-moon, and) full-moon days, we renounce gross ill-usage of living beings, grossly lying speech, gross taking of things not given, (unlawful) sexual intercourse, (unlimited) appropriation of property; we shall set limits to our desires in the two forms and the three ways. They will also make the following renunciation: "neither do nor cause anything (sinful) to be done for my sake." Having (on Posaha-days) abstained from eating, drinking, bathing and using beds or chairs may they, on their decease, be said to make a (righteous) end of their life? "Certainly, they do make such an end of their life." (SK, trans. Jacobi 1968, 2:429-31)
It is for this very reason that the posaha becomes a Śikṣā Aņuvrata, or training vow for the laity, but never appears anywhere as an obligation for monks. In fact, for Jains the posaha always involves laity and we see no mention whatsoever of monks actively participating in posaha in any canonical text or any other writing, even into the early modern period. In the next section I will present a range of evidence from various Jaina literary sources which should serve to cement that fact.
