Studies in the Bhagavati Sutra

Author(s): J C Sikdar
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur

Page 237

212 STUDIES IN THE BHAGAWATÍ SŪTRA (Ch. IV (marriage by mutual love), Raksasa? (marriage by forcible method), and other forms of marriage."
With regard to the marriage gifts like the BKS the Nāyā. dhammakabão also provides a long list of articles and other necessaries of life presented by the parents of the bridegroom to the newly married brides. In other Jaina works there are references to the dowry system prevailing in the society of their periods.
The description of the marriage system as found in the Bhs and other Jaina texts is fully supported by those of the Buddhists and Brābmanical works in which the marriage is also treated as sacrament, a union of two incomplete human beings into a spiritual whole. The couple is united together by the religious bond with an ideal for creating compatibility, finally by subordinating their biological necessity to the ethical, intellectual and spiritual demand of a higher self.
Because there are both physical and psychic unions manifested in the entrance of the husband into the womb of the wife in the form of semen and (his) birth as the son.?
1 Brh. Bhūsya Pithika p. 57.
Kamalâmelā was abducted and married by Sagaracanda). Āvasyaka Cürni II, p. 81; also Cr. Nisitha Cúrni II, p. 81 ; Āvaśyaka sikà (Hari) p. 580a ; also refer to Kathāsāritsagara, Vol. VII, p. 116ff. (Marriage with step-mother) for sister-marriage see Avasyaka Cūrni II, p. 178, and for cousin
marriage refer to Uttaradhyayana sikā p. 189a. 3 Nāyādhammakahão Țikā i, p. 42a f; Antagadā pp. 33-35
trans, by Barnett, Vide Life in Ancient India as depicted in the Jaina Canons by Dr. J. C. Jain, p. 156.157. Uvāsagadasão 8, p. 61. (The wives of Mahāsayaga of Rāya. giha possessed their ancestral property), also refer to the U ttaradhyayana [ikā 4, p. 88; (A king of Vārānasi presented a dowry of one thousand villages, one hundred elephants & abundant wealth. One lakh of foot-soldiers, and ten thousand horses to his son in-law). See also Rāmāyana 1-47. 4 ff. The Jataka refers to the custom of performing the marriage with bath money presented by father to his daughter particularly in the case of royal marriage (Mehta, P.B. 8.1, p. 281). Refer to Life in Ancient India by Dr. J. C. Jain
for all these details-p. 175. 6 See Buddhist India, Rhys Davids, p. 32. 8 Mano-Smrti 9, 8.
1 16. 9, 8.