Introduction

(i) It is to be expected that Kundakunda's challenge to the legitimacy of the clothed monk's status within the Jaina tradition would be met with a counterattack from the adherents of that group. The first such response comes from the sixth-century Svetambara acarya Jinabhadra (489-593), who in his celebrated work the Visesavasyaka-bhasya led a spirited defense of the rules that permitted the use of clothes and begging bowls to Jaina monks (verses 3057-3088). But, strangely, Jinabhadra is silent on Kundakunda's most provocative statement (Chapter I, #7-8) in which he questioned the very ability of women to assume the mendicant vows on account of their biological condition. The conflicting positions must have generated a great deal of discussion in both Jaina sects, but it is not until the middle of the ninth century that we find a scholarly response in the form of an authoritative work called the Strinirvanaprakarana (A Treatise on the Nirvana of Women), a short treatise in some fifty verses (together with a prose commentary, the Svopajnavrtti ), dedicated solely to the defense of women's ability to attain moksa. Even this belated response, however, did not originate from the Svetambaras but from an obscure sect called the Yapaniyas and from one Sakatayana (c. 814-867) whose name does not even appear in the lists of the mendicant lineages of either sect but who is revered by both as a great grammarian, a Jaina Panini as it were, the author of the Sabdanusasana (also called the Sakatayana-Vyakarana ) and a voluminous commentary on it called the Amoghavrtti .

(ii) The origin of the Yapaniya sect, which became extinct by the fifteenth century, is shrouded in mystery to such an extent that the tenth-century Digambara chronicler Devasena in his Darsanasara (Upadhye, 1934) calls it an offshoot of the Svetambaras, while the fifteenth-century Svetambara author Gunaratna in his commentary on the Saddarsanasamuccaya (p. 161) characterizes it as a Digambara subdivision. Research into the history and literature of this sect is fairly recent and can be limited to the works of N. Premi (1956, pp. 56-86), D. R. Birwe (1971), and A. N. Upadhye (1974). Upadhye has made a comprehensive chronological survey of the inscriptions (from the fifth to fourteenth centuries A.D. ) that record the names of scores of mendicants and a few laymen affiliated with the Yapaniya sangha. It can be deduced from these inscriptions that the lay members of this community were quite affluent and also that its mendicants were very much active in installing images of the Jinas (all of them depicted naked like those of the Digambaras) in richly endowed temples in the area of northern Karnataka, especially in the present-day districts of Belgaum, Dharwar, and Gulburga. They seem to have flourished in that region for over a thousand years until their mendicants were gradually assimilated with the surrounding Digambaras, probably becoming the forerunners of those who later came to be known as the bhattarakas (clerics; see Johrapurkar, 1958) in that tradition and lost their identity as a separate Jaina group.

(iii) There is doubt about the correct spelling and the possible meaning of the term "Yapaniya." In the inscriptions the word also appears under various spellings at different times (Japaniya, Yapuliya, Javiliya, Javaligeya, and so on). Upadhye (1974, p. 12) has suggested that the term is probably an incorrect Sanskritization of the canonical Prakrit javanijje (*yamaniya , as in imdiya-javanijje , i.e., those who control their senses). On the other hand the Pali form yapaniya (from ya + ape ) means "sufficient for supporting one's life," an adjective applied to the provisions (such as food, clothing, and shelter) for a monk. But we do not even know of any particular emblem by which the monks of this community were identified, let alone any particular "provision" that might have led to the designation Yapaniya. It is, however, certain that the images of the Jinas they worshiped were naked like that of the Digambaras, and in one inscription (Upadhye, 1974) a Yapaniya monk has even been described as jatarupadhara (lit., having the same form as when one is born, i.e., naked). This agrees with the Svetambara acarya Gunaratna's description of the Yapaniyas as Digambaras, since the two would be indistinguishable for want of an emblem. But the Digambaras shunned them as if they were a mixed breed, calling them

pseudo-Jainas (Jainabhasa) and accusing them of imitating both sects. Thus the sixteenth-century commentator Subhacandra says: Yapaniyas tu vesara ivobhayam api manyante, ratnatrayam pujayanti, Kalpam ca vacayanti, strinam tadbhave moksam, kevalijinanam kavalaharam . . . ca kathayanti; Satprabhrtadisangrahah , p. 11. That is to say: while the Yapaniya monks might have appeared as Digambaras, they also accepted certain scriptures of the Svetambaras, especially the texts on the mendicant discipline (the Kalpa , i.e., the Brhatkalpa ) that laid down rules on such mendicant necessities as clothes, begging bowls, food, medicine, and so forth. Most important, they shared the two Svetambara beliefs that the Digambaras had condemned as heretical—namely, that women can, despite their clothes, attain moksa in that very body and that a person may continue to partake of food and water even after becoming an Omniscient Being (see note 3 on kevali-kavalahara ). These assertions about the Yapaniyas, found in the works of their opponents and hence liable to be incorrect, have been confirmed, however, by Sakatayana's treatise the Strinirvanaprakarana (and its companion treatise the Kevalibhuktiprakarana ).

The Yapaniya thus would seem to represent an ancient ecumenical movement that tried to combine some of the major features of the acelaka and sacelaka factions, but as it has so often happened in India, it was rejected by both and was reduced to the fate of becoming just one more Jaina sect that disappeared in the course of time. Nevertheless, the term "Gopya" (causative from gup , to hide) used by Gunaratna as a synonym for the Yapaniyas (Gopya Yapaniya ity apy ucyante; see Chapter V, ii) probably provides a clue to the original emblem or linga of the mendicants of this group that could have once distinguished them from those of the other two sects. Certain rather late Digambara narratives trace the origin of the Svetambaras to a group of monks called the Ardhaphalaka (lit., those with half a strip of cloth). According to one such version preserved in the Brhatkathakosa of the tenth-century Digambara author Harisena, these were originally Digambara monks (under the acarya Bhadrabahu of Ujjain in central India) who, during a period of drought that lasted twelve years, were unable to sustain themselves through the prescribed method of visiting a single house and eating food offered in their joined palms (see Chapter I, n. 5). They therefore were persuaded by some of their lay followers to adopt the practice of using begging bowls to collect food bit by bit from various households during the night—instead of daytime so as to avoid the crowds that might follow them—and eat the gathered alms at their residence during the day. One night a certain emaciated monk visited a Jaina household with his bowl in hand, and the sight of that naked monk in the

dark caused such a fright to a young pregnant woman that she aborted the fetus. Seeing that tragedy the Jaina laymen approached the monks next day and said: "O Sages, as long as this drought lasts you cannot practice your vows [of nudity and eating from one's joined palms] properly. Therefore for the duration of this calamity you should visit the households at night covering yourself with half a piece of cloth (ardhaphalaka ) held in your left arm and the begging bowl in the right. You may undertake the necessary expiation (prayascitta ) when normal times return." This, the narrative adds, is the origin of the "Yapana-sangha," the monks of which, unable eventually to return to the vow of nudity, became fully clothed. (yavan na sobhanah kalo jayate sadhavah sphutam, tavac ca vamahastena purah krtva 'rdhaphalakam; [58] bhiksapatram samadaya daksinena karena ca, grhitva naktam aharam kurudhvam bhojanam dine. [59] Brhatkathakosa [Bhadrabahu-kathanaka, no. 131], p. 319).

Sectarian accounts of the origins of one's adversaries are always suspect and this one fares no better. Even so, the legend may have preserved a kernel of truth in describing the "Yapana" monks as those who tried to "bide" their time, that is, who remained naked according to the vows and yet concealed their nudity in public—for whatever reason—not by wearing a loincloth but by the clever device of the ardhaphalaka, an act that could have earned them the crude title Gopya. Archaeological evidence from the excavations made at Mathura confirms this conjecture. This consists of three sculptures of Jinas (Shah, 1987, intro., p. 7; figs. 12, 15, 21) datable to the Kusana period, on the pedestals of which are carved standing Jaina monks each holding on his left forearm a short piece of cloth held in such a way as to conceal his nudity exactly as described in the ardhaphalaka narrative in the Brhatkathakosa . It is significant that this motif was never again repeated in the Jaina iconography, indicating the possibility that the "Ardhaphalakas" or the Yapaniyas who had formed a major group of Jaina monks in the second century A.D. declined after their migration to the Deccan and probably discarded the practice, thus becoming indistinguishable from the Digambaras, or may have merged fully with the Svetambaras of western India.

(iv) The Digambara writer Subhacandra's statement that the Yapaniyas, unlike the Digambaras, read (i.e., accept) the (Brhat ) kalpa , the Svetambara canonical texts of mendicant discipline, is confirmed by the works of Sakatayana, who quotes from them in support of strimoksa (see, for example, #26, #37, #42). This would indicate that the Yapaniyas did not share the Digambara view of the loss of the canon and probably possessed the same scriptures, albeit with variant readings, that were extant in the

Svetambara tradition. The earliest evidence that the Yapaniyas had their own secondary scripture is provided by the eighth-century Svetambara acarya Haribhadra's commentary (vrtti ) called the Lalitavistara on the Caityavandana-sutra , a Prakrit liturgical text. It is said in the third verse of this text that even a single reverential greeting (namaskara ) to the Jinas from Rsabha to Mahavira carries one across the ocean of samsara, whether the person be a man or a woman (ekko vi namokkaro jinavara Vasahassa Vaddhamanassa, samsarasagarao tarei naram va narim va). Commenting on the word "narim ," Haribhadra says that the inclusion of women is to show that even they can attain the destruction of samsara in that very life, that is, without being born as males (strigrahanam tasam api tadbhava eva samsaraksayo bhavatiti jnapanartham), and then quotes a long Prakrit passage in support of the doctrine of strimoksa from a text that he calls the Yapaniya-tantra . This work, of unknown date and authorship, is no longer extant; and the title "tantra" applied to it is also quite unusual for a Jaina work. But judging by the content of the portion quoted by Haribhadra, the term "tantra" probably means no more than a sastra or a polemical treatise in prose written most probably against the Digambaras like Kundakunda who, as we have seen, had opposed the mendicant vows to women. In this passage, no longer than a few lines, the Yapaniya author seems to have been able to compile almost all the scriptural reasons, presented in a rather disorganized sequence, for not denying the attainment of the excellent dharma (i.e., moksa) to women. This Yapaniya-tantra thus probably served as the forerunner of Sakatayana's Strinirvanaprakarana and possibly for that reason was not mentioned by him. Hence the portion quoted by Haribhadra may be reproduced here:

yathoktam Yapaniyatantre : no khalu itthi ajivo, na yavi abhavva, no yavi damsanavirohini, no amanusa, no anariuppatti, no asamkhejjauya, no aikuramai, no na uvasamtamoha, no na suddhacara, no asuddhabomdi, no vavasayavajjiya, no apuvvakaranavirohini, no navagunatthanarahiya, no ajoga laddhie, no akallanabhayanam ti kaham na uttamadhammasahigatti?

See Strinirvana-Kevalibhuktiprakarane , app. 2, pp. 58-60. This also contains Haribhadra's long commentary on this passage as well as a subcommentary (panjika ) by the fifteenth-century Svetambara author Municandra.

Without going into the technical details which will be taken up in the debates) this passage could be rendered:

It is not the case that a woman is nonspirit [i.e., matter], or one who is predestined never to attain moksa (abhavya ), or one who is opposed to the right

view [darsana ; see n. 4], or a nonhuman being [i.e., a god or an animal; see #3] or a non-Aryan [i.e., a mleccha , a species of human beings with animal faces; see JSK Ill, p. 356], or one who lives for countless years [like gods, etc.], or one who is invariably of cruel mind, or one who may never totally pacify her passions, or one whose conduct is never pure, or one whose body is invariably impure, or one who is devoid of exertion, or one who is inherently opposed to the apurvakarana [see n. 12], or one who is devoid of the [capability to reach the] ninth gunasthana [see n. 12], or one who is unworthy of attaining [certain] yogic powers, or one who is the begetter of the inauspicious only [since she gives birth to the Tirthankaras also]; so how can it be said that she may not attain the excellent dharma [i.e., the mendicant vows or moksa]?

We have seen that the Digambaras were the first to initiate the debate on the mendicant status of women, but we do not know precisely who their adversaries were, for Kundakunda is silent as to their identity. The fact that the highly reputed eighth-century Svetambara scholar Haribhadra should quote rather casually a text in support of strimoksa, not from his own tradition but from that of the Yapaniyas, can only mean that until his time the Svetambaras themselves had not dealt seriously with the Digambara challenge on that point. The name "Digambara" is conspicuously absent from the works of Haribhadra or from the Yapaniya-tantra quoted by him and also from the works of Sakatayana. It is evident, however, from the portion of the Yapaniya-tantra quoted above that the initial opponents of the Digambaras were the Yapaniyas and that they were the first to formulate logical arguments in support of strimoksa and had by the time of Haribhadra become closely allied with the Svetambaras.

(v) One other ancient work that probably once belonged to the Yapaniya sect may be mentioned here. It is called the Siddhiviniscaya and is attributed to one Sivasvamin by Sakatayana, who quotes two of its verses in his Vrtti (see #36). This text is also no longer extant, but from the title—Determination of (the Nature of) Siddhi , i.e., moksa—it too appears to have been a work that dealt with the topic of strimoksa. Nothing more is known about this Sivasvamin, whom Sakatayana has referred to as bhagavad (lord) acarya , a highly distinguished title for a Jaina monk. Premi (1956, pp. 67-73) has suggested the possibility that this Sivasvamin is identical with the acarya Sivarya (c. A.D. 2007), author of the Bhagavati-aradhana (also called Mularadhana ). This is a work of 2,279 Apabhramsa verses traditionally revered by the Digambaras as their book of mendicant discipline (together with another Prakrit text called the Mulacara of the acarya Vattakera, c. A.D. 150). Premi has conclusively proved that Srivijaya (also called Aparajita, c. eighth century), the author of a Sanskrit

commentary called the Vijayodaya on the Bhagavati-aradhana , must have been a Yapaniya, because this commentary contains a great many passages that deal with such items as clothes, begging bowls, and so forth, in a manner that is totally inconsistent with the Digambara tradition but also not entirely in agreement with the Svetambara texts. His critical study of the Vijayodaya commentary has led Premi to surmise that the Bhagavati-aradhana also must have once belonged to the Yapaniyas before it was assimilated with the Digambara tradition and that its author Sivarya was none other than the bhagavad-acarya Sivasvamin mentioned by Sakatayana.

(vi) This brings us to the only two extant texts of the Yapaniya school, namely the Strinirvanaprakarana and the Kevalibhuktiprakarana , together with a commentary (vrtti ) on each, all four works attributed to the same author, Sakatayana. Although the name Yapaniya does not appear in them, a comparison of the contents of the Strinirvanaprakarana with the Yapaniya-tantra discussed above leaves no doubt about the sect where these could have originated. That the author was Sakatayana is known from the colophon of a manuscript of the Strinirvana-Kevalibhuktiprakarane (krtir iyam bhagavadacaryaSakatayanabhadantapadanam iti; p. 12). It is now accepted, thanks to the researches of D. R. Birwe (1971, intro.), who has examined at length the views of N. Premi, K. B. Pathak, and A. N. Upadhye among others, that this Sakatayana is identical with the Sakatayana who is known as the author of the Sabdanusasana and its commentary the Amoghavrtti . Whether he was the follower of the Yapaniya or some other sect is not quite clear from the latter works. At the beginning of the Amoghavrtti he describes himself only as "Sakatayana, the most venerable acarya of the great sangha of the sramanas" (sastram idam mahasramanasanghadhipatir bhagavan acaryah. Sakatayanah prarabhate . . .; Sakatayana-Vyakarana , p. 1), which only indicates his exalted status within the Jaina community but does not name the sect of which he was the spiritual head. This is a serious omission since traditionally among the Jainas, divided as they have always been among rival sects, an acarya is invariably the head of only one ecclesiastical group and not of all the mendicants of the entire community. But in the colophons appearing at the end of each section (pada ) of each chapter (adhyaya ) Sakatayana is called "Srutakevalidesiya-acarya," a title that, according to Upadhye (1974), confirms his affiliation with the Yapaniyas prevalent in Karnataka. There he was contemporaneous with the Rastrakuta King Amoghavarsa I (c. 814-877), after whom he named his commentary on the Sabdanusasana

the Amoghavrtti . This date is in keeping with the internal evidence provided by the Svopajnavrtti , namely, a quotation from the Pramanavarttika (see #91) of the seventh-century Buddhist logician Dharmakirti. The upper limit is provided by the tenth-century Digambara acarya Prabhacandra, who quotes a verse from the Strinirvanaprakarana (no. 30; see #87) in his Nyayakumudacandra (see Chapter III, #26).

These two Yapaniya treatises, consisting respectively of 46 and 37 verses, were published for the first time by Muni Jinavijayaji under the title of Strimukti-Kevalibhukti-prakaranayugmam in 1924 and were republished as an appendix to the 1971 edition of the Sakatayana-Vyakarana , intro., pp. 121-127. The credit for discovering the Svopajnavrttis ("Autocommentaries") goes to the veteran Jaina scholar Muni Punyavijayaji, who found in 1963 a single palm-leaf manuscript of it in the Santinatha (Svetambara) Jaina temple library of Khambhat, Gujarat. This manuscript was copied and collated by Muni Jambuvijayaji with three other manuscripts, two only of the verses and one a small fragment of the Vrttis , the main sources for his critical edition, which was published in 1971 by the Jaina Atmananda Sabha of Bhavanagar, Gujarat. Muni Jambuvijayaji's edition is remarkable for the accuracy of his reconstructed verse portions and is enriched by his many critical footnotes as well as the appendixes, which provide selections from the works of later Svetambara authors on the topics covered. The appendix on strimoksa (pp. 58-84) is extremely valuable as it reproduces complete sections on this topic from the Caityavandanasutra-vrtti by Haribhadra (c. 750) and a Panjika upon it by Municandra (c. 1410), the Sanmatitarka-vrtti by Abhayadeva (c. 1050), the Uttaradhyayanasutra-brhadvrtti by Vadivetala Santisuri (c. 1100), the Nyayavataravartika-vrtti by Santisuri (c. 1120), the Yogasastra-Svopajnavrtti by Hemacandra (c. 1160), the Prajnapanasutra-vrtti by Malayagiri (c. 1160), the Pramananayatattvalokatika by Ratnaprabha (c. 1250), and finally the prima facie portion (stating the Svetambara position only) appearing in the Nyayakumudacandra of the Digambara author Prabhacandra (c. 980-1065).

My translation of the Strinirvanaprakarana-Svopajnavrtti is based entirely upon this edition of Muni Jambuvijayaji (pp. 13-38), with only two minor changes as indicated in n. 28. Muni Jambuvijayaji's scholarly footnotes have been invaluable to me in preparing this work. I have been unable to reproduce his textual footnotes for want of space, but I hope readers will consult them for greater appreciation of this scholarly edition. In the following translation, the verses of the Strinirvanaprakarana appear in boldface type, to enable the reader to easily distinguish the original text from the prose commentary (the Svopajnavrtti ).