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Āryikās: The Digambara Sādhvis
Women are capable in fact of perfect self-mastery.
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In the same way as munis utilise certain objects which are a help towards samyama, the picchikā, the kamaṇḍalu and books, so too women ascetics, in order to practise saṁyama, cover themselves with a garment. What is to blame in that? If one considers that there is in this a manifestation of the spirit of possessiveness, then one should say the same about munis also.
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Clothing, it is said, is the cause of sins of himsă; minute living beings insinuate themselves into it; one washes it, wears it, mends it. This reasoning is not valid. Munis, in that they move around, sit down, and speak do not avoid any less the sins of himsā.
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Women, say some, are less worthy of reverence than men. However, this cannot be claimed to be an obstacle to Liberation. The ganadharas, too, were less worthy of reverence than the tirthankaras. Neverthless, they attained Liberation.
647
- Women, people say, have weak characters. Now, this goes against Scripture. Do we not have the examples of Brahmi, Sundari, Räjimati, Candana and other ganinis, who received dikṣā and were persons of outstanding character, venerated by one and all? And in our own days we see numerous exemplary āryikās up and down the country and, apart from the āryikás, do we not have examples of holy women of noble character such as Sita? Do we not also know of heroic women who, abandoning the easy court-life and severing family-ties, received dikṣā and led lives of irreproachable virtue?
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And how let us consider bhāva-veda and dravya-yeda. The more important, clearly, is bhava-veda; in spiritual endeavour dravya-veda is secondary and is subordinated to bhāva-veda. Furthermore, to say that one can have a dravya-purușa and a bhava-stri, a masculine body and a feminine psyche, or vice versa, is nonsense. Such anomalies would lead to aberrations. Women who have a bhava-puruşa would feel themselves attracted to women with a bhāva-stri and in the same way men
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