Studies in the Bhagavati Sutra

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

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STUDIES IN THE BHAGAWATI SŪTRA
Ch. IV
guarding them in separate palaces provided with necessary staff and requisites of the worldly life.
The evidences of polygamy prevailing among the ruling Ksatriya princes are fully corroborated by the other Jaina texts in which many cases of the practice of this system of marriage are found to exist in the society of their periods.
Thus it is found there that like the Ksatriya princes, Tāmāli and Mahābala, the kiogs-Bharata,? Vikramajasa' a Seniya and his son, prince Meghakumāra* figure in the Jaina works as polygamous husbands each of whom maintained a large establishment for his individual wife in the harem.
As a result of supporting a big contingent of the palacestaff there was certainly a heavy drainage of money on the financial resources of the family, however wealthy and prosperous it might have been.
The main idea behind the practice of polygamy by the ruling Ksatriya princes was probably the sensual gratification of their desires, combined with the power of wealth, social position, priviledge, vanity, and political alliance.
Similarly there is found the existence of the widely prevalent system of polygamy among the Ksatriya princes of the society depicted in the two great Epics - the Mahābhārata" and the Rāmāyaṇa.
In this connection the views of the prince, Jamālī on the sensual gratification of desires with his eight wives, expressed during his arguments advanced to his parents for obtaining their permission to undertake the state of houselessness in the presence of Lord Mahāvīra, should be taken into consideration to determine the position of woman as wife in the family of those days of the Bhs.
12 Uttarādhyayana Tikā, 18, p. 239. 3 Antagada, 7, p. 43. 4 Naya hammakahão, 1, 24, p. 23. 5 Mahābhārata "Arjuna and other princes were polygamous
husbands. * Rāmāyāna, King Dasaratha himself was polygamous.