Studies in Buddhist and Jaina Monachism

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

Page 128

SECTION II
NISSAYAS
A careful perusal of most of the Indian religious texts, so far extant, would show that they profess a life of fewness and poverty, obedience and modesty, and purity and chastity for those intending to attain liberation. Frequent mention is made in these texts about a number of persons who retired from the world and took refuge in the lonely and fearful part of the forests in order to lead a solitary and peaceful life. There, some of them are said to have carried on various types of ascetic practices and self-mortification (tapa) in respect of food, dress and dwelling.1 Lord Mahāvīra too is recorded to have followed the foot-print of his seniors and to have observed self-mortification for as many as twelve years He discarded the use of clothes altogether and accepted food in the palms of his hands. Thus he is said to have attained the snmmum bonum.2
At first, the Buddha too followed the same course But in his case, as we are informed, it failed to produce the desired effect. Due to this inefficacy of self-mortificatior, the Buddha was constrained to hold a very low opinion of it (i e. self-mortification) which is manifest in his address delivered to the Pañcavaggiya monks-"A life given to self-mortification is painful, ignoble and inefficacious". It was nothing but natural for a rational person like him to disdain rigorous ascetic practices and prefer a life of modesty. Very probably, this would have been the only reason that notwithstanding the ceaseless requests of Devadatta to make the austre-practices binding on all, the Buddha prescribed them as the things of mere taste and liking.4
Thus in spite of the best efforts of the Buddha to have no connection with the world even for sustenance, as certain persons are often alleged to have done, he could not. He was forced to promote intimacy with the world at least for the bare necessities of life, viz food to keep body and soul together, dress and dwelling to withstand the inclemency of weather and so on and so forth. All these things together, that is, food, dress and dwelling, etc., are given a technical name,
1. Dialogues of the Buddha Vol. I, pp. 226-32; Buddhist India, pp. 134ff. 2. Kapp (SBE. Vol. XXII), pp. 250-60.
3. yo cayam attakilamathānuyogo dukkho anariyo anatthasam hito.--MV, 1. 7. 13, p. 13.
4. CV, 7.9.14, pp. 298-99.