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Āryikās: The Digambara Sadhvis
If one says that this incapacity is due to the wearing of clothing, one is maintaining that clothing is the cause of an attachment. Why should clothing be reckoned a "possession"? Because it touches the body? Because it provides a certain pleasure? The touching of the body is not a form of possession; one has frequent contact with the earth, but is it said that one experiences an attachment for the earth? There is no pleasure in wearing a garment. In the Scripture it is required that a woman should wear clothing because the complete renunciation that nudity involves is not possible for her. However, in order to attain mokṣa, woman renounces fully her own body. Why should she not renounce clothing? In our day and age, one does in fact come across some yoginis who have abandoned all clothing.
- Clothing, in the same way as the picchika, the kamaṇḍalu and books, is a dharma-upakaraṇa, a useful object helpful for selfcontrol, and not a possession. Moreover, clothing is upakāri, beneficial and salutary, for the good reason that at the sight of a naked woman men would tend to lose all self-cotnrol.
- Furthermore, when one says that the wearing of clothing is a sign of an attachment, one is mistaken. Munis, because they dwell in certain villages and houses for a while, may easily get attached to these places or dwellings. Thus, there is no valid reason for saying that women have not the necessary capacity for realising the Three Jewels and that they are weaker than
men.
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The argument that women are not venerated and therefore cannot be Liberated is quite untenable. Venerated by whom? By the acaryas or by ordinary people? The aryikās, true, are not saluted by the ācāryas, but nor do the ācāryas salute their muni disciples; in that case Liberation would be denied to all these munis.
- Women are capable of devoting themselves to the arduous study of the Agamas and of understanding their content.
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