Studies in Buddhist and Jaina Monachism

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

Page 38

THE SALIENT FEATURES OF JAINA ACARA
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It is remarkable that a Jaina monk neither cleanses teeth nor takes bath, and hence, these are not enumerated in the list of the daily duties of a mendicant.
TZ
The requisites of a Jaina monk : As the practice of ideal conduct depends mainly on acceptable food, proper dress and suitable abode, the Jaina Order seems to be careful enough as regards the same. It recommends not only to the mendicants but also to the laities, though not with the same strictness as in the case of the former, a life of rigour and severity. The sole aim behind this being the practice of aparigraha (non-possession of property), the material articles allowed to the monks are very few and limited in number and kind. This effort of the mendicants to observe poverty scrupulously enabled a group of them to abstain from the use of cloth even. Other regulations regarding the material needs of monks are also marked by the same type of serverity which will be manifest in the ensuing discussion.
1. Begging and food : The rules to be followed in respect of food were indeed very difficult and troublesome. Under no circumstances, a monk was permitted to hoard articles of food. So also, cooking food by their own hands? or accepting food purposely prepared, purchased or borrowed for monks was not permissible to them. They were to depend on fi od gathered from begging only, and that too must be acceptable, procured from a proper donor and in a lawful way. The offences which pertained to the nature (of food), the purpose and the method of its preparation (udgama), the ways and means adopted in its acquisition (utpada), the ways of offering and accepting (eșana) and the way of eating (paribhoga! were forty-two in number. 4
Normally, the monks set out for begging in their complete outfits when there was no rain, mist, gale or insects in the sky. On the journey they tried to avoid a road full of living beings, pits, uneven ground, pillars, mud, bridges, embers, ashes or cow dung?; or the company of a householder or a heretic. So also their best efforts was to keep themselves away from the vicinity of courtezans, a dog, a recently delivered cow, a wild bull, horse or elephant, a scene of
1. Dasv, 8 24; 6.18 & 10.8 forbid even overnight possession of food. 2 A monk is not allowed to do any fire activity.--Dasv, 8.8. 3. Ibid, 5-1. 55; 6.49-50; Nis, 18.21-64. 4. Sung (SBE, Vol. XLV, 364; Uttur, 24.12.
Ayar (SBE. Vol XXII), 2.1.3.6 (p. 96). 6. Ibid, 2.1.3.9 (pp. 96f); Dasu, 5-1.8. 7. Ibid, 2.1.5.2-4 (pp. 90-101); Dasv, 5-1.3-7. 8. Ibid, 2.1.1.7 (p. 90).