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Äryikās: The Digambara Sadhvis
that it is māyā, deceit, duplicity and certainly not excellence - understood here in the sense of outstanding virtues that is clearly evidenced in the Agamas in connection with women.
If one considers samyama, self-control, what can be said in regard to women except that their form of samyama is saccla or savastra, that is to say, cannot be dissociated from the wearing of clothing. Hence their capacity for self-control is the same as that of the śravikās. For in no text of Scripture is it affirmed that womankind may practise self-mastery in the state of bodily nudity. Therefore, if one were to permit her this nudity, one would undermining ascetic discipline and committing a sin.39
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One attains mokṣa through a total inner and outer detachinent. Now, clothing is the sign of a certain attachment to the body. If one justifies the wearing of clothing by affirming that it avoids himsa towards insects who are attracted by bodily warmth, this is not a valid argument, for one would then be condemning nudity in the name of ahimsa. Furthermore, the wearing of clothing does not in fact prevent himsă, for minute living beings which one may damage or squash may penetrate into the said clothing.40 In using clothing, in washing, drying and repairing it, one is the cause of himsă and of some form of attachment as well. Moreover, if one takes into consideration only the aspect of ahimsa one should cease walking for the sake of protecting living beings.
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39 He too mentions the necessity of an excellent bone-structure.
40 Cf. P 546 for the aṣṭasukṣmas.
645
To return to the question of samyama, the munis use the picchika, the kamaṇḍalu and books. Can one say that these constitute possessions? Certainly not, for these objects are used in order to avoid himsã, they are not, like clothing, the sign of an attachment to the body. These are upakaraņas, aids which are upakāri, salutary; they contribute towards the realisation of the Three Jewels, while clothing is an adhikaraṇa a support, a possession.
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