Introduction

(i) The next selection is from the Tarkarahasyadipikavrtti (i.e., A Commentary entitled "The Illuminator of the Secret of Arguments") by the fourteenth-century Svetambara acarya Gunaratna on the Saddarsanasamuccaya of the eighth-century Svetambara acarya Haribhadra (see Chapter II, iv). In this compact work of only eighty-seven verses, Haribhadra, for the first time, organized the doctrines of the six philosophical schools (darsanas )—namely, the Buddhist, the Naiyayika, the Samkhya, the Jaina, the Vaisesika, and the Jaiminiya, in that order—truly a forerunner of the Brahmanical Sarvadarsanasangraha of the fourteenth-century Madhava. Gunaratna's commentary thus amounts almost to an independent work consisting of a vast amount of descriptive as well as polemical material, purportedly an elaboration on the themes listed in the verses of Haribhadra. On many occasions, however, Gunaratna, in the true tradition of the Indian commentator, takes on the additional task of covering many controversial topics that might have been ignored by the original author as only of sectarian interest and therefore of little value in a manual of philosophy. Strimoksa may be considered one such topic that is not mentioned in Haribhadra's text but owes its treatment to Gunaratna's initiative. It gives Gunaratna an opportunity to respond to the Digambara examination of the strimoksa theory as contained, for example, in the Nyayakumudacandra and to establish the Svetambaras as the true representatives of the Jaina tradition.

(ii) Gunaratna's work is also distinguished for being the first Jaina work of this genre to provide information on the contemporary Jaina sects and their essential characteristics. Introducting the "Jainamata," or the tradition of the Jainas, he says:

First we will describe the monastic emblems [linga; see Chapter I, n. 6], the dress (vesa ) and the mendicant conduct (caritra), and so forth, of those who belong to the Jaina tradition. Jainas are twofold: the Svetambara and the Digambara. The emblem of the Svetambara [mendicants] consists of the rajoharana [the whisk broom; see Chapter I, n. 6], the mukhavastrika [a piece of cloth held in front of the mouth while preaching or reading], and loca [the plucking out of one's hair by hand], and their dress consists of [three] long, unstitched pieces of cloth. Their mendicant conduct consists of five samitis [carefulness in walking, speech, eating, lifting and laying down, and depositing waste products] and three guptis [curbing the activities of body, speech, and mind]. Their guru [monastic teacher] is the nirgrantha (see Chapter I, n. 12], one who has control over the five sense faculties (indriya ), has conquered anger and so forth, and is endowed with the mendicant vows [Chapter I, n. 9] of nonviolence, truthfulness, nontheft, celibacy, and nonpossession [akincanya , lit. nothingness]. Their food consists invariably of alms collected [from different households] in the manner of a bee [which gathers honey from different flowers] and which is pure in nine ways [not prepared by oneself or got prepared by others, or prepared with the consent of the receiver, each multiplied by the three modes of action, namely, the body, speech, and mind]. They wear clothes and carry the patra [bowl for collecting food] only for the sake of maintaining their vows, and when greeted [by the lay people] they respond by saying "dharma-labha " [may there be gain of righteousness].

The Digambara [mendicants], however, are characterized by nudity (nagnya ) and use only their joined palms to receive food [panipatra; see Chapter I, n. 4]. The Digambaras are fourfold as they are divided into the four mendicant lineages called the Kasthasangha, the Mulasangha, the Mathurasangha, and the Gopyasangha.

In the Kasthasangha the whisk broom is made of the hair of the yak tail, in the Mulasangha and the Gopyasangha it is made of peacock's feathers, while the Mathurasangha has from the beginning [of their lineage] not kept any whisk broom. The first three groups when reverentially greeted by others [i.e., the lay people] respond [by the words] "dharma-vrddhi " [may there be increase in righteousness]. They do not believe that a woman can attain moksa, or that a Kevalin eats food, or that a clothed person even if he has assumed the great vows [e.g., a monk of the Svetambara sect] can attain moksa. But the Gopyas [like the Svetambaras] when greeted respond by saying "dharma-labha " and believe that women can attain moksa and also that the Kevalin eats food. The Gopyas are also called Yapaniya [see Chapter II, iii]. All these [Digambara] monks stop wandering for food or eating that day when confronted by any of the thirty-two kinds of obstructions [antaraya ; e.g., the sight of a dead animal] or fourteen kinds of dirt [mala ; e.g., a strand of hair found in food]. [For details on these see Saddarsanasamuccaya , p. 161, nn. 4-5.]

As for the rest, in all matters pertaining to the teachers (guru) as well as the Deity [deva, i.e., the Lord Jina], they are comparable to the Svetambaras; there is no distinction in their doctrinal (sastra ) or logical (tarka ) treatises. [Saddarsanasamuccaya , pp. 160-161]

(iii) Gunaratna's account of the Jaina sects agrees with the one provided by the sixteenth-century Digambara bhattaraka Srutasagara, a follower of the Mulasangha, which traced its lineage to the acarya Kundakunda himself. Srutasagara declares that only the Mulasangha is the original (mula ) path of moksa and cites a verse that condemns the following five as pseudo-Jainas (Jainabhasa): the Gopucchika (i.e., the Kasthasangha), the Svetambara, the Dravidasangha (a South Indian group not noticed by Gunaratna), the Yapaniyaka, and the Nispiccha (i.e., the Mathurasangha). (uktam ca—Gopucchikah Svetavasa Dravido Yapaniyakah, Nispicchas ceti pañcaite Jainabhasah prakirtitah; Satprabhrtadisangrahah , p. 11.) Of the four non-Svetambara sects mentioned here only the Mulasangha survives today, but the inscriptional evidence (see Johrapurkar, 1958) shows that the Kasthasangha (named after Kastha, a place near Delhi) and the Mathurasangha (named after the city of Mathura near Agra) continued to exist almost to the end of the nineteenth century. As for the Yapaniyas, it is not clear whether Srutasagara counted them among the Digambaras; but as discussed earlier (Chapter II, #3) by his time they were probably assimilated with the Digambaras, a conclusion that is supported by Gunaratna's account. But this does not prevent Gunaratna, as was the case with several of his predecessors (Abhayadeva, Santisuri, Hemacandra, Malayagiri, and Ratnaprabha; see Chapter II, #6), from using the so-called Digambara-Yapaniya arguments in favor of strimoksa against the other Digambaras who rejected it as a heresy. Gunaratna's strimoksa section opens with a declaration that "the Digambaras display their line of reasoning" and begins with the syllogistic statement (prayoga) offered by Prabhacandra (without mentioning his name), but the rest of his debate is heavily indebted to the (unacknowledged) Yapaniya author Sakatayana's Strinirvanaprakarana and its Svopajnavrtti .

(iv) My translation corresponds to the text of the Tarkarahasyadipikavrtti in the edition of the Saddarsanasamuccaya , pp. 301-308, by Pandit Mahendra Kumar Jain (1970).