Introduction

(i) This final selection is taken from the Yuktiprabodha by the seventeenth-century Svetambara author upadhyaya (preceptor) Meghavijaya, together with his commentary Svopajnavrtti , published in 1926. This is truly a comprehensive work expressly written for the refutation of a whole range of Digambara positions; the strimoksa topic occupies nearly fifty of the total two hundred and twenty pages (pp. 76-125). The work is also known by another title, Varanasiya-Digambaramata-khandana , that is, a refutation of the Digambara views held by the followers of Pandit Banarasidas (1586-1644). In the concluding portion of this work, Meghavijaya (c. 1653-1704; see A. P. Shah's introduction to his other work, the Digvijayamahakavya ) gives a brief account of the reasons that led him to undertake this polemic against the Digambaras. Banarasidas (see Rath, 1981) was a Svetambara Jaina layman whose family had traditionally been devotees of Meghavijaya's spiritual lineage, which was called Tapagaccha. He came under the influence of the works of the Digambara acarya Kundakunda through his friends residing in the city of Agra. He abandoned his faith and became a propagator of Kundakunda's teachings contained in the Samayasara (translated by Chakravarti, 1971), notable for its emphasis on the niscaya-naya (nonconventional point of view). He wrote a Hindi poetical composition entitled Samayasara-nataka (a kind of "drama" in which the aspiring soul plays the role of hero and defeats the enemy called karma). This work attracted a great many Svetambaras to the Digambara

faith. Meghavijaya set out not only to correct what he termed the "one-sided" (ekanta ) view of Kundakunda on the nature of the soul but also to demonstrate the fallacious character of the Digambara views on as many as eighty-six doctrinal points, of which strimoksa was the most debated topic. This explains the choice of his title, Yuktiprabodha (Teaching Through Arguments), and a reason for presenting it as a "drama" (nataka; e.g., the entry of the Digambara in #1). The victorious hero represents, of course, the Jaina Teaching as propounded by the Svetambara order (see #92, verse 4), and the villains are the "misguided" Digambaras, both old and new.

(ii) In his lengthy exposition of the Svetambara position on strimoksa, which is fundamentally identical with that of the Yapaniyas, Meghavijaya matches almost all the rival arguments put forth by Prabhacandra and Jayasena (as contained in Chapters III and IV). Prabhacandra, his main target, is referred to twice by name, and his twin works, the Prameyakamalamarttanda and the Nyayakumudacandra , are alluded to as the forked tongue of the deadly Digambara snake (paksam dvijihvabharanasya manda-Prabhendudustasya Digambarasya; #92). Prabhacandra had responded vigorously to the major issues of the debate initiated by the Yapaniya author Sakatayana against the Digambara position on strimoksa. However, he had also chosen, quite deliberately it would seem, not to reexamine, in light of the Yapaniya criticism, the traditional Digambara interpretation of the term "manusyini" (a "woman" in its secondary meaning as a "man"; see Chapter II, #97-109 and #123). The Svetambara successors to the Yapaniyas—notably the twelfth-century Ratnaprabha (who mentions Prabhacandra in his Ratnakaravatarika , reproduced in the Strinirvana-Kevalibhuktiprakarane , pp. 78-81), the fifteenth-century Gunaratna (Chapter V), and the seventeenth-century logician Yasovijaya, who examines several of Prabhacandra's "prayogas" in his Sastravartasamuccayavrtti (pp. 425-430) and the Adhyatmamatapariksa (pp. 431-461)—had concentrated more on Digambara syllogistic arguments than on the validity of that school's interpretation of the term "manusyini." Meghavijaya takes up this unfinished task in earnest and devotes a major portion of his work to prove that the Digambara interpretation contradicted their own position on the doctrine of karma and gunasthana, as explained in the authoritative work, the Gommatasara , of the eleventh-century Nemicandra. The opening portion of the strimoksa section of the Yuktiprabodha-Svopajnavrtti is thus replete with a large number of lengthy quotations and charts (of the gunasthana scheme) from the Gommatasara and its commentary. He then makes an inventory of all the known Digambara arguments (fifteen in all; see #25-39) and sets out to refute them one by one.

These are of course reformulations of the same counterarguments, albeit presented with additional details, that had appeared earlier in the works of Sakatayana and Gunaratna discussed above. Lack of space and my wish to avoid tiresome repetition have led to the omission of both the lengthy quotations and the refutations of the old arguments. But his new arguments, or significantly new formulations of the old arguments, have been retained in a slightly abridged form and add considerably to the ongoing debate on strimoksa.

(iii) Meghavijaya's presentation of the Digambara view of strimoksa is masterly. He cannot be accused of misrepresenting the opponent's view, although occasionally he does employ worldly observations (of non-Digambara origin), especially on the fickleness of women and so forth, to strengthen the purvapaksa. He not only reproduces Kundakunda's verses describing the impurity of a woman's body (#10) but furnishes further details, found only in the Jaina scripture, on the millions of beings (with two or three senses) that inhabit the birth canal or on the millions of sperm that are destroyed in a single act of coitus (#69). He even makes a suggestion-not ventured even by the Digambaras-that the menstrual flow is not merely a biological function but is directly connected with a woman's libido (see #89), comparable to the seminal discharge of a man.

(iv) Meghavijaya is also uniquely informative on the Jaina position regarding the hermaphrodite (napumsaka), who is introduced into this debate as an example (udaharana ) since such a person shares the same disability the Digambaras attribute to a woman in attaining moksa. The Svetambaras cannot reject this example, for they too believe that a hermaphrodite does not qualify to be a mendicant. But Meghavijaya takes this opportunity to point out that this disability is not so much due to the physical gender of the hermaphrodite as to the insatiability of his libido, and hence he argues (#60) that this case is quite dissimilar to that of a woman whose libido is comparable to that of a man. He also excludes from this category those who are not congenitally hermaphrodites (e.g., the eunuchs; see n. 35), as well as those who may be born with deformed bodies (hunda , n. 48), and allows them entry into the Jaina mendicancy, a privilege denied by the Digambara sect, thus deemphasizing the physical requirements for attaining moksa. His refutations of the syllogistic arguments are precise and methodical, but he is selective in choosing to respond to the opponent's suggestion on a variety of points highly relevant to the debate. He is silent, for example, on the Digambara argument of concomitance based on the relationship of the indicated and indicator (gamya-gamaka-sambandha; Chapter III, #36). He also fails to examine Prabhacandra's observation that

a woman is incapable of overcoming shame (lajja), and thus sexual desire, and hence is unfit for mendicancy (Chapter III, n. 70). At the same time he has no hesitation in defending the Svetambara practice of worshiping their female Tirthankara Malli's image in a male form (#77) on the grounds that showing her breasts would be against the code of decency.

Meghavijaya may finally be credited for offering a new syllogistic argument (prayoga) for strimoksa based on the ability of a woman to undertake the vows of the eleven pratimas (#90). It is quite significant that his discussion concludes with the statement that "clothing and other requisites of monks are not possessions" (#91). The Yapaniya acarya Sakatayana sought only to establish the mendicant status of women against the Digambara claim that they cannot progress beyond the stage of "advanced laywomen." The Svetambara authors, over the centuries, as seen earlier in the portion from Gunaratna's work, not only endorsed the Yapaniya position but strengthened it to fight against their sectarian rivals, the Digambaras. Meghavijaya, the last author to explore the topic of strimoksa in either tradition, can be said to have had the last word in the debate as he finally employs the strimoksa arguments to legitimize the mendicant status of the Svetambara order, a status that was first challenged by the Digambara acarya Kundakunda in his Suttapahuda (Chapter I, #1-3).