Background of the Jaina Sectarian Debate

#1 The salvation or spiritual liberation of women (called stri-nirvana , stri-moksa , or stri-mukti ) has been a matter of great controversy between the two major sects of Jainism, the Digambaras and the Svetambaras. The former vehemently have insisted that one cannot attain moksa, emancipation of a soul from the cycles of birth and death (samsara ), as a female, while the latter have steadfastly refused to claim exclusively male access to the liberated state (Arhat or Siddha ) of the soul. The beginnings of the feud between the two sects—which eventually split Jaina society into two hostile camps—is itself shrouded in mystery; no one has yet been able to ascertain with any precision either the direct cause of the division or the dates of the initial controversy. Both traditions agree, however, that the final breach took place around 300 B.C. during the time of the Venerable Bhadrabahu, a contemporary of Emperor Candragupta, the founder of the Mauryan dynasty. Since that time, the two sects have refused to accept the validity of each other's scriptures; indeed, the Digambaras have even claimed that the original words of Mahavira were irrevocably lost.^[1] In addition, the adherents of both sects refuse to recognize their rival's religious as true mendicants (muni or sadhu ), setting up a debate that tears at the very fabric of the entire Jaina community.

#2 One of the major issues dividing the two sects was the acceptability of ordained persons wearing clothes. While this might seem to us moderns a trivial issue on which to base what was to become a major sectarian dispute,

the debate masked basic concerns in Jaina soteriology that were hardly frivolous. On one point there was unanimity: the last great teacher (known by the title of Jina, or a spiritual victor) of their religion, Vardhamana Mahavira, who lived, according to the tradition, from 599 to 527 B.C. , had been a naked ascetic (acelaka sramana ), and some of his early adherents had been similarly "sky-clad" (digambara ) and hence came to be known as jinakalpins (i.e., similar to the Jina).^[2] But this was the extent of the consensus. The Digambaras, who went naked (nagna ) following Mahavira's example, claimed that a mendicant must renounce all property or possessions (parigraha ), including clothes; the only exceptions they allowed were a small whisk broom (rajoharana ) for brushing insects away from one's seat and a water gourd (kamandalu ) for toilet purposes. They therefore accepted only naked monks as the true mendicant adherents of the Jina and regarded the Svetambara monks, who continued to wear white clothes (sveta-ambara ) after ordination, as no better than celibate laymen (brahmacari-grhastha ). Nudity thus became for the Digambaras the fundamental identifying feature (muni-linga ) of the mendicant life, and they maintained that without undertaking at least that modicum of practice, one could not hope to attain the most exalted of states, moksa or nirvana.

The Svetambaras, of course, conceded that Mahavira adopted the practice of nudity (acelaka ), but they regarded the renunciation of clothes as optional for monks, somewhat similar to the practice of austerities such as fasting, which, although entirely commendable, was hardly mandatory. The Svetambara position became increasingly intransigent, however, until the leaders of that sect came to claim that clothes were an integral part of the holy life and that they were the only true mendicants because they wore clothes. As the debate became even more inflammatory, the Svetambaras even resorted to eschatological arguments to justify their claim: the practice of nudity, while commendable during the time of Mahavira himself, was no longer advisable in this degenerate age. Their scriptures related that soon after Mahavira's death the practice of nudity became extinct. Its revival was deemed inappropriate during the subsequent period, in a fashion reminiscent of the kalivarjya practices—or those practices once legitimate but now condemned—in the Hindu law books. Svetambaras therefore considered the Digambaras heretics for rejecting the authenticity of their canon (agama ), especially for defying the canonical injunctions against nudity, and for showing disrespect to the large mendicant order of the white-clad Svetambara monks who were following the prescribed practice of the sthavirakalpa , that is, being clothed and being a member of the ecclesiastical community.

#3 With the overriding importance that the Digambaras attached to nudity, it is no surprise that clothes came to occupy a central position in the debates on the possible salvation of women as well. For reasons that are never specifically stated, even the Digambaras did not grant women permission to practice nudity under any circumstances and insisted that women wear clothes. This injunction effectively barred women from ever renouncing all "possessions" and, accordingly, from attaining moksa in that life. Female mendicants, although called noble or venerable ladies (aryikas or sadhvis ), were technically not considered mendicants at all but simply celibate, albeit spiritually advanced, laywomen (utkrsta-sravika )—a status similar to that which the Digambaras were willing to accord to the Svetambara monks. The Svetambaras, on the other hand, did not consider clothes a possession (parigraha) but rather an indispensable component of the religious life (dharma-upakarana ). Therefore, even though nuns wore clothes in strict accordance with the prohibition against nudity, they were on an equal footing with monks and were granted the full status of mendicancy. More important, however, women were thus considered eligible to attain moksa in that very female body—a prospect possible to any nun who was sufficiently adept spiritually. Moksa was therefore based not on biological condition but on spiritual development alone.

#4 The Digambaras, however, refused to accept any possibility of a person, whether male or female, attaining moksa without renouncing one's clothes, for the retention of clothes implied residual sex desire (expressed through lajja or shame); when coupled with their prohibition against women ever renouncing their clothes, this refusal led to the formulation of the doctrine that a person could not attain moksa while having a female body. Strangely, this development is neither attested in the pre-Mauryan canon, the Dvadasanga-sutra —admittedly recognized only by the Svetambaras—nor discussed in the earliest stratum of postcanonical literature of the Digambara sect (e.g., the Satkhandagama-sutra , c. 150). The earliest indication that there was such a controversy in the Jaina community of mendicants (sangha ) is to be found in the Prakrit Suttapahuda of the Digambara mendicant Kundakunda (c. second century A.D. ). While explaining the true nature of renunciation (pravrajya ), Kundakunda observes that one becomes a Jaina mendicant when one renounces not only internal attachments but also all forms of external possession, including one's clothes, and assumes the state of complete nudity (nagnabhava ). He then states, rather casually, that a woman's renunciation is not comparable to that of a man:

There is also the emblem [linga , i.e., order] for women: a nun is called aryika [a venerable lady]. . .. She wears a single piece of cloth and eats only one meal a day.

In the teaching of the Jina a person does not attain moksa if one wears clothes. . .. Nudity is the path leading to moksa. All others are wrong paths.

The genital organs of the woman, her navel, armpits, and the area between her breasts, are said [in the scriptures] to be breeding grounds of subtle forms of life. How can there be [full] renunciation for a woman?

Their minds are not pure and by nature they are not firm in mind or in body. They have monthly menstruation. Therefore, for women there is no meditation free from fear.^[3]

#5 Kundakunda does not identify the school which might have claimed that a nun's renunciation was as complete as that of a monk. One would expect his opponents to be the Svetambaras, who have traditionally held that view. Yet the earliest extant work dedicated to a systematic refutation of the Digambara position does not originate in the Svetambara camp. Rather, this honor belongs to an obscure Jaina sect known as the Yapaniya, which probably came into existence around the second century and was extinct by the twelfth.^[4] Sakatayana, a ninth-century mendicant of this order, is credited with a work called the Strinirvanaprakarana , a short treatise in some fifty verses, together with a commentary (the Svopajnavrtti ), that establishes him as the first known Indian expounder of a woman's (i.e., a nun's) ability to attain moksa.

#6 The Yapaniya sect seems to have combined in its practices elements drawn from both of the two major Jaina sects. Following the Digambaras, their male mendicants went naked; but, like the Svetambaras, the Yapaniyas acknowledged the authority of the Svetambara canon and professed that nudity was prohibited for women because in their case that practice was not necessary to achieve moksa. For the Yapaniyas, a modicum of clothing was not a hindrance to the attainment of moksa in the present life for a woman or even for a man who, after becoming a monk, developed inflammations such as fistulas that needed to be covered by clothing. The Svetambaras, who had close affinities with the Yapaniya sect, appear to have subsequently adopted the Yapaniya arguments in favor of the possibility of women attaining moksa and challenged the Digambaras on this issue. The controversy spanned a thousand years and was carried forth in the works of such Svetambara mendicant writers as Haribhadra (c. 750), Abhayadeva (c. 1000), Santisuri (c. 1120), Malayagiri (c. 1150), Hemacandra (c. 1160), Vadideva (c. 1170), Ratnaprabha (c. 1250), Gunaratna (c. 1400), Yasovijaya (c. 1660), and Meghavijaya (c. 1700)^[5] The Digambara responses probably begin with Virasena (c. 800) and continue in the works of Devasena (c. 950), Nemicandra (c. 1050), Prabhacandra (c. 980-1065), Jayasena (c. 1150), and Bhavasena (c. 1275). Notwithstanding the continued attempts made by scholars of both schools to refute their

rival's position, the lines of argument remained fundamentally the same and the sectarian battles became increasingly acrimonious.

#7 As is well known to students of Indian philosophy, the basic texts of the six philosophical schools (darsanas ) have one common goal: establishing the validity of their conception of moksa or nirvana—synonymous in Jainism—the classical ideas of salvation in India, which bring an end to the cycle of rebirth (samsara). It is extraordinary indeed that no other school except the Jaina ever questioned the inherent capacity of a woman to attain moksa in her present body, in her present life. The Jainas are conspicuous, therefore, in introducing what is basically a sectarian dispute into their philosophical texts. It should be remembered that both Digambaras and Svetambaras are almost unanimous in their approach to refuting the doctrines of the non-Jaina philosophical schools (darsanas). However, once authors affiliated with either of the two main Jaina schools finish their discourse on the true nature of moksa, there inevitably appears a dispute over the physical prerequisites necessary to attain that state: the Digambaras claim that moksa is attainable only by males, while the Svetambaras maintain that having a female body is no obstacle to salvation. One might expect the Jainas to settle this matter through recourse to their scriptures; but, as noted above, the sects do not always share the same body of texts. They do, however, share a common belief system and in many cases their positions are identical regarding the status of women vis-à-vis men within the ecclesiastical order or with reference to the laws of karma that apply to male and female rebirth processes.

The syllogistic formulas (of the traditional Indian type called prayogas ) employed by both schools, when examined from the standpoint of the significance of their shared beliefs and doctrines, thus provide interesting examples of the sectarian disputes that racked the medieval Jaina church in particular, as well as the attitude of Indians in general toward women, both in the religious and social spheres. I propose here to compile briefly some of the major arguments used by the Jainas in their treatments of the possibility of women attaining moksa and will focus in particular on those inferences that are presented in syllogistic form. This examination will also enable us to draw out the implications of that controversy for the wider problem of religious salvation for women.