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50: Śramana, Vol 62, No. 2 April-June 2011
The principal written sources for judging the proper conduct of the laity are the medieval śrāvakācāras, treatises containing rules of conduct (ācāra) for the laity (śrāvaka), and nītiśātras, texts on statecraft, law and ethics. The word śrāvakācāra and its synonym upāsakādhyayana, lessons for the layman, are used as generic terms only by the Digambaras who claim that the original Upāsakādhyayana is lost, while the Svetambaras preserved the Uvāsagadasão (Sanskrit Upāsakadasāḥ or Upāsakadhyayana), the only canonical text exclusively devoted to the concerns of the laity. The Sanskrit term nītiśāstra is used as a designation for both texts on statecraft and political ethics (räjanīti) and for texts on morality and rules for ethical conduct in everyday life (sāmānya-nīti).8 Together, the śrāvakācāra and the nītiśāstras form the Jaina equivalent of the Hindu dharmaśāstras." But their focus is more on ethics and ritual than on statecraft and personal law, which are traditionally kept outside the religious law and left to local custom, deśācāra, which Jains are advised to observe if there is no conflict with the dharma.
Jaina texts on kingship, statecraft and personal law were composed in contexts where individual Jaina mendicants exercised personal influence over one or other 'Hindu' king or local official. The majority of the texts were created by monks of the Digambara tradition which had a sustained influence on the ruling dynasties in the Deccan between the 8th-12th centuries. The most significant Jaina works on statecraft are the Adipurāṇa of Acārya Jinasena (ca. 770-850 C.E.) and the Nitiväkyāmṛtam (ca. 950 C.E.) and the Yasastilaka (959 C.E.)1o of Acarya Somadeva Sūri. Both authors were associated with the rulers of the Raṣṭrakūta Empire. The Adipurāṇa belongs to the genre of universal history. It tells the life story of the first Jina, the legendary first king and law-giver Rṣabhadeva, in the manner of a Jaina Mahābhārata, and for the first time offers blueprints for Jaina social rituals and Jaina kingship through the Jainization of Brhmanical prototypes. The
