Studies in Buddhist and Jaina Monachism

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

Page 158

NISSAYAS
131
(vi) The purpose behind the use of cloth
It is however certain that both Buddhism and Jainism admitted that clothing was to be used not for bodily decoration but for the
on of the body. It was therefore, simply to put up with the
winds, to ward off the tortures caused by mosquitoes and insects, and to hide share that the monks of the Buddhist Order used clothing.' So also the Jaina asectics wore clothing with a view to avoid shame (hiripattitam), public disrespect on account of nakedness (dugunchapattitai) and to put up with the parisahas (parisahavattiyan). These reasons for the use of clothes remained more or less unchanged in spite of their amplification in the later Jaina texts. Thus the Jaina Order fully assented to the Buddhist, because the reasons for permitting the Jaina monks to wear clothes were ipso facto the same as those of the Buddhist.
(vii) Laying aside the robe
Normally the Buddhist monks were expected to dress themselves properly. Particularly, they were asked to enter the houses of householders and to sit there outfitted with all their robes. As such they were debarred even from entering a village, if clad simply in sanghāti and antaraväsaka.“ In the same way the Jaina asectics were asked not only to enter or to leave the house of Jay-devotees dressed in all their garments, but also to go to a out-of-door place for easing the calls of nature, or for study or simply for wandering from village to village in the same manner.
But the Buddhist Church, in due course, relaxed the strictness considerably. Monks as well as nuns were allowed to avail many privileges concerning various aspects of life after the solemnisation of the kathina ceremony and the discipline to be observed in respect of the use of clothes was one of them. The first privilege was the
1. idha, bhikkhave, bhikkhu patisarkhā yoniso civara mi patisevati-'yāvadeva
sitassa pațighātāya, unhassa patighātāya, damra-makasavätātapasirinsa. vasamphassānami patighātāya, yāvadeva hirikopin appaticchādanattham.
MN, Vol. I, p. 14. 2. Thān, 171, p. 138a; Dasv, 6. 20. 3. OghN, 706, p. 213b gives six reasons for the use of cloth.
timandalam prţicchådentena parimandalami pivāsetvā käyabandhanam bandhitvå sagunaṁ katya sanghățiyo pārupitvā ganthikam patimuñeitvā
......gāmo pavisitabbo.--CV, 8. 5. 9, p. 317; 8. 6. 11, p. 320; PM, 7.1-4. 5. na santaruttarena gamo pavisitabbo.--MV, 8. 19. 37, p. 313. 6. Ayar (SBE, Vol. XXII), 2, 5.2.1 (p. 163).