Studies in Buddhist and Jaina Monachism

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

Page 164

NISSAYAS
143
should have neither any scope for inflicting injury to living beings nor for indulging in misconduct. Therefore they tried to find out a place free from living beings, eggs and cobwebs;' having a suitable place for easing call of nature and a place where there was easy to procure food, drink? and medicine. So far as the commission of miscon
ict was concerned, sometimes it so happened that the ladies of the house inhabitted by the monks enabled them to have sexual intercourse with a view to have a healthy child from them. It was, therefore, befitting that the monks normally disliked a house used simultaneously by householders;" a place visited by women, beasts, eunuchs and heretics? and preferred secluded places like gardens, temples, potters' workshops, caves, forests, roots of trees, deserted houses and burning grounds to residences specially built for them, places which were likely to make the monks passionate, regions which had no king or regions where the king was wicked'.
Having found out a suitable residence, the monks sought the formal permission of the lawful proprietor of the house before occupying it. It was perhaps because of the reason that the owner of the house (sejja tari) provided them the necessary articles of furniture, if they were in such a need. The main articles of furniture comprised of stool, bench, bed, couch, etc., which they could use freely during the rainy season, and in case of sickness and old age in dry seasons. 11 After their purpose was over, they returned these articles to the persons from whom borrowed. 12
This study of the rules concerning the residence of two important Sects of Indian mendicants brings out that the Jainas alone could stick to houselessness in the true sense of the term. The greatest benefit which they drew from their wandering life was that they could
1. Ayar (SBE, Vol. XXII) 2. 2. 1. 1-7 (pp. 120-22); 2. 2. 2. 1-4 (pp. 124-26). 2. Vide OghN, 132, p. 63a; Dasan, 8. 8-27, pp. 53b-56b, 3. OghN, 164, p.71b; HJM, p. 247; Dasan, 8 8-27, pp. 53b-56b. 4. Ayar (SBE. Vol. XXII), 2. 2. 1. 8-12 (pp. 122-124). 5. Ibid, 2. 2. 2. 6 (p. 126); 2. 2. 3. 5-11 (pp. 131-132). 6. Nāyā, p. 76; Bhag, p. 758b. 7. Ayar (SBE. Vol. XXII), 2. 2. 2. 8-13 (pp. 128-28). 8. Vivagasugan, p. 17; Uttar, 9. 4; 18. 4; 23. 4-8; Nāyā, p. 69; Antg, p. 41. 9. Ayar (SBE. Vol. XXII), 1. 7. 2. 1 (p. 64); Uttar, 2. 19-20; 32. 16; Mül, 10.
58-60. 10. Ibid, 2. 2. 3. 14 (pp. 128-29). 11. Vav, 8. 2. 12. Ayar (SBE. Vol. XXII), 2. 2. 3. 23 (p. 134); Byhk, 3. 25-28; Nis, 2. 53-58;
Vav, 8. 7-10.