Studies in Buddhist and Jaina Monachism

Author(s): Nand Kishor Prasad
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur

Page 114

PABBAJJA AND UPASAMPADA
93
The scanty references occurring in the Pali canon show that the monks were interested in the laities not because they earnestly wished to lead them in their struggle for the attainment of the summum bonum, but simply because they were the source of their maintenance and support. Therefore, a householder was frequently advised to give his unqualified help to the Saugha and to have implict faith in the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Saigha, and was seldom asked to work out his own salvation.
What is desired to bring to notice is that the precepts meant for the householders are very very limited Out of the innumerable rules of the Vinaya, perhaps the first eight of the ten sikkha padas are the only precepts which a householder should follow in line with the monks." Likewise, in the whole corpus of the four Nikāyas, the Sigalovadasutta is the solitary instance which is completely devoted to the instruction and exhortation of a householder, and hence, is aptly called Gihivina ya or Vinaya of the householder. According to the Sutla, a householder should avoid the fourteen evils, namely, the four vices (kammakilesa) like destruction of life, stealing, licentiousness and false speech; evil actions (papakamma) done from the four motives of partiality (chanda), enmity (dosa), stupidity (moha) and fear (bhaya) and six ways of dissipation of wealih (apa ya mukhāni), viz, addiction to intoxicating drinks, frequenting the streets at unseemly hours, haunting fairs, gambling, association with evil companions and illness. Further he is admonish. ed to render his best possible services to his parents, wife, children, friends and companions, and Sramana-brahmaņas. Thus what a layman or a lay-woman is taught is to become a pious lay.devotee. 2
But opposed to this, the Jaina lay community is recognised as separate Orders known as the Srāvakasangha and Śrāvikā sangha, quite distinct from the Orders of the monks and nuns respectively. Therefore the Jaina lay community, besides their positive duties to provide to the mendicants the necessities of life, had to follow a separate course of moral discipline which is set forth in great details in the Jaina canon.
The primary precepts to be followed by a Jaina layman or laywoman, we have already seen in case of Ananda, are the twelvefold duties of a śrävaka or a śravikā, viz. the five aņuvvayas, three gunavv ayas and four sikkhāvvayas. The anuvvayas or the minor vows, as the very
1. Rhys Davids, Buddhism, p 139. 2. DN, Vol. II, pp. 139-149. 3. Thān, 363, p. 281b; Kapp (SBE. Vol. XXII), pp. 267-268.