Studies in Buddhist and Jaina Monachism

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

Page 142

NISSAYAS
i2i
the pot (malorika ) were some of the main accessories sanctioned to the Buddhists, and a piece of string to bind the pot (pattabandha), a coverlet for the pot (padala), a stand for the pot (payatthavana), two pieces of cloth to be used as pot-cleanser and coverlet of the pot (payapadilehania and gocchaga) respectively? were the chief accessories allowed to the Jainas.
Besides these, the Jaina sources contain an elaborate details as regards the size, the quality and other aspects of an ideal pot. 3
(iv) The purpose of taking food Every religion lays stress upon the need of using a thing with pure intention. Naturally the Buddhist Church enjoined upon the monks to take food neither for sport, nor for sensual excess, nor for personal charm and adornment, but for the maintenance of the body, cessation of the pangs of hunger, as a help to celibacy, to appease the arisen feeling of hunger and to check the origination of new feeling, in brief to maintain life. 4
Almost in the same way, the Jaina Order advised the ascetics to take food because of six reasons, namely, for the appeasement of the pangs of hunger, for rendering service to seniors and sick, for maintaining a proper mode of movement, for practising self-control, for maintaining life and for practising religion.
Thus the reason for which the monks were allowed to take food by the Buddhists as well as by the Jainas were more or less the same, viz, to make them able to practise religion. It will not be improper to refer to the fact that the purpose of taking food was of prime importance as the quantity of food to be consumed by a monk seems to have been regulated by it.
1. CV, 5. 8. 22, p. 213. 2. OghN, 674-704, pp. 205a-213b. 3. Vide Ibid, 674-704, pp. 203a-:13b; HJM, pp. 264-27).
patinaikhi yoniso pindapatan Patisevati--neva davāya, na madaya, na mandanāya, na vibhușanāya, yāvadeva imassa kāyassa shitiyā yāpanāya, vihinsuparatiyā, brahmacariyanuggahāya, iti purānam ca vedanani pati haikhāni navam ca vedanam na uppādessimi, yātră ca me bhavissati anavajjată ca phāsuviharo ca.--MN, Vol. I, p. 15; Vide DN, VoI, 1, pp. 62f which advises a monk to take as much food as is sufficient to keep one's stomach going. veyanaveyāvacce iriyatthae ya sanjamatthāe. taha paņavattiyac chattham puna dhammacimtae.--Thān, 500, p. 359a; OghN, 579-582, pp. 188ab.