Format and Substance of the Debate
#8 The general format of the initial series of argumentation is the Digambara's denial of moksa for women, the Svetambara's affirmation of women's capacity to achieve salvation, and the Digambara's rebuttal. The
Digambara makes the opening statement:
There is moksa for men only, not for women;
because of the absence of valid evidence to support that claim;
as is the case with congenital hermaphrodites (napumsaka ) [who are considered unfit to attain moksa in both sects].[6]
#9 The Svetambara answers:
There is moksa for women;
because there is no deficiency in the causes [called ratnatraya , or the "Three Jewels"] that lead to moksa for them;
as is the case for men.
In their refutation of the Digambara claim, the Svetambaras retort that the Digambaras must cite an adequate piece of evidence that would prove the absence in women of the conditions that lead to moksa. Surely, say the Svetambaras, such insufficiency in women cannot be proved by perception (pratyaksa ); nor can it be established via a valid inference (anumana ), since such an inferential mark (linga ) that has invariable concomitance (vyapti or avinabhava ) with what is inferred (sadhya ) cannot be found. Nor is there any scope for resorting to scripture (agama ) in this case, for they find no passage in the texts which would conclusively prove that one cannot attain moksa in a female body. On the other hand, they can prove that a woman is free from those deficiencies which prevent her from attaining moksa. For what is the primary condition for attaining moksa As described in a treatise accepted as authoritative by both schools, the Tattavarthasutra , the path to moksa consists of Three Jewels (ratnatraya)—right view (samyak-darsana ), right knowledge (samyak-jnana ), and right conduct (samyak-caritra )—and all three of these jewels are to be found together in women. Women therefore have no deficiency in regard to the attainment of moksa.
#10 The Digambara rebuttal to the Svetambara position may be paraphrased as follows. We of course admit that the Three Jewels are to be found in women, as you mentioned, but only in an inchoate form. Merely possessing the rudiments of the Three Jewels, however, does not qualify them to attain moksa, for otherwise all religious persons in the moment immediately following their initiation into mendicancy would necessarily attain moksa. But this, of course, is not the case. Moksa is possible only when the aspirant attains to the absolute perfection of the Three Jewels, especially of right conduct, and that perfection, we maintain, is impossible for a woman.
#11 The Svetambara objects to this stand by challenging the Digambara to show how one would ever perceive this perfection of the Three
Jewels. Surely, the Svetambara maintains, the point at which such perfection occurs is the penultimate moment of one's life, immediately preceding the attainment of moksa, and that moment is imperceptible. But is its imperceptibility sufficient cause to deny its existence? If you have any other logical means to prove your argument, then let us hear your arguments.
#12 The answers to this challenge given by the Digambara sum up the basic arguments of the debate. The Digambara says that, of course, there are valid proofs which support our own claim that women cannot attain moksa, because they are inherently inferior to men (hinatvat ). This can be proved by the following reasons, all of which include appropriate syllogistic inferences (prayoga):(1) the inability of women to be reborn in the seventh and lowest hell, unlike men; (2) their inability to renounce all possessions, including clothes; (3) their inferiority in such skills as debating; (4) their inferior position in both general society and the ecclesiastical order.[7]
#13 Before turning to a consideration of the first reason, it is appropriate to explain initially a few cosmological details pertaining to the Jaina beliefs about an individual's rebirth in the lowest hell. The Jaina universe consists of three spheres: the upper heavenly abodes (svargaloka), the lower hellish abodes (narakaloka), and the tiny area in between called the middle abode (madhyaloka, the earth), wherein dwell human beings and animals.[8] There are a variety of heavens situated one above the other, abodes of ever increasing happiness. The highest heaven, called Sarvarthasiddhi (lit., Accomplishment of All Desires), was considered the highest point of worldly happiness and was achievable only by the highest kind of meritorious (punya ) deeds. Similarly, there are seven successive hells, their misery increasing as one descends. The lowest hell, called Mahatamahprabha (lit., Pitch Darkness), was attained only by those beings who commit the most inauspicious (apunya or papa ) actions. Beyond the heavens but within the habitable universe (called lokakasa , beyond which movement was not possible) was an area where the Jainas believed that emancipated souls called Siddhas, once freed from their karmic burden and all other forms of embodiment, rose automatically and abided forever in their omniscient glory. The summit of the universe was called the Siddha-loka.
The Jainas also had stringent restrictions on the process of rebirth between the three spheres. A being born into one hell, for example, could not be reborn into another hell or into a heaven. By the same token, a heavenly being could not be reborn into a different heaven or into one of the hells. The destiny of both hell and heavenly beings was, therefore, in the
Madhya-loka as a human being or an animal. The middle realm was thus the center of gravity of the rebirth process and the springboard to rebirth in any other sphere. In agreement with general Indian beliefs, the Jainas also believed that moksa could be achieved only from a human existence.
#14 What is of particular interest for our controversy is the fact that the Digambaras and the Svetambaras, who both accept this cosmology and the rules pertaining to rebirth, agree further that women, unlike men, are incapable of experiencing the most extreme form of unwholesome volitions; consequently, they are incapable of being reborn in the lowest, the seventh, hell. However, while the Svetambaras did allow women to experience extreme purity of moral consciousness and therefore attain rebirth in the Sarvarthasiddhi, this possibility was denied by the Digambaras. The Digambaras used their belief in the disparity between the moral consciousness of men and women as justification for their dogma that women—who cannot fall into the lowest hell or rise to the highest heaven—are inherently incapable of achieving the Siddha-loka, a realm beyond the highest heaven at the summit of the Jaina universe.
#15 The rationale behind this argument was the mutually accepted doctrine that the intensity of a given volition determined the character of the action it catalyzed. The Jainas used the word "dhyana " (concentration) to refer to both evil and good volitional impulses. Evil concentration was twofold: arta (sorrowful) and raudra (cruel), of which the most extreme forms of the latter led to rebirth in the seventh hell. Wholesome concentration was similarly twofold: dharma (righteous) and sukla (pure). The cultivation of the former led to wholesome destinies, culminating in the highest heavens. Only by pure concentration (sukladhyana), however, could one attain moksa after having completely eliminated all karmic bonds. The Digambaras maintained that only those who were capable of entertaining the most impure forms of concentration were similarly fit to entertain the purest types of concentration. They therefore argued that the inability of a woman to be born in the seventh hell was a sure indication of her incapacity ever to be born in the highest heaven. Even if, for the sake of argument, the Digambaras were to regard the attainment of the Sarvarthasiddhi heaven as immaterial to the debate about moksa, they still would have argued that the abode of the Siddhas—which represented cosmologically the highest extreme of the universe, in contradistinction to the seventh hell—could be attained only by those who were able to perfect that sukladhyana.[9] Should the Svetambara, however, insist that the female body was no obstruction to attaining not only Sarvarthasiddhi but even the Siddha-loka, then they perforce would also have to admit that women could
be reborn in the seventh hell—a position that was against their own scripture and therefore false. The Digambara syllogism used to prove this point is as follows:
The excellence of knowledge and so forth, required for moksa, is not found in women;
because such excellence and so forth must have absolute perfection;
just as women lack the ultimate extreme of demerit, which is the immediate cause of rebirth in the seventh hell. [They therefore also lack the absolute perfection required for attaining moksa.][10]
#16 The Digambara position, based as it is on the alleged mediocrity of women and especially on their inability to experience the most evil forms of action, is countered by the Svetambaras in the following argument, which recognizes the fallacy of absence of invariable concomitance (vyapti ) in the Digambara syllogism. The Svetambaras maintain that there is no invariable concomitance between the fact that women cannot fall into the seventh hell and their presumed inability to attain moksa. The Svetambaras advocate that when there is invariable concomitance between two things, the presence or absence of one thing would always be accompanied by the presence or absence of the companion item. Fire and smoke are so related, so that whenever there is smoke there is fire; this is because there is a causal relationship between smoke and fire. The species of tree simsapa is also invariably associated with trees, so that whenever there is an absence of trees, there would always be an absence of simsapa: thus there is a relationship of (noncausal) pervasion (based on identity) between tree and simsapa. But, the Svetambaras advocate, the fall into the seventh hell and the inability to attain moksa are neither causally related—as were fire and smoke or the Three Jewels and moksa—nor noncausally pervasive, as were tree and simsapa. Hence to propose an invariable concomitance between the fall into the seventh hell and the inability to achieve moksa is fallacious. Because of this lack of causal connection, the Digambara argument remains inconclusive.
#17 On the face of it, the Svetambara argument seems conclusive enough. But the Digambara response, which I have found in only a single text, the Nyayakumudacandra of Prabhacandra (c. eleventh century), is worth noting.[11] Prabhacandra rejects the Svetambara indictment of the Digambara claim, based as it is on the inherent problems involved in establishing a cause-and-effect relationship between falling into the seventh hell and going to moksa. He instead advocates a different type of relationship: that of indicator (gamaka ) and indicated (gamya ). Prabhacandra rejects the fault shown by the Svetambara of the absence of
invariable concomitance between going to the seventh hell and going to moksa, because the law of concomitance does not necessarily depend on a cause-and-effect relationship or on a relationship of pervasion based on identity. Invariable concomitance is possible even if the relationship pertaining between those things is merely that of a single cognition invariably linking two disparate things (gamya-gamaka-bhava ). In the cognition of the rise of the asterism Krttika (the Pleiades), for example, the following rise of the constellation Sakata ("the Cart," the five stars forming the next asterism Rohini) can invariably be inferred, even though there is no causal relationship (or identity relationship) between the two asterisms. A similar relationship of indicator/indicated exists between falling into the seventh hell and attaining moksa; thus the mutually accepted fact that women do not fall into the seventh hell is a valid condition for inferring that women do not attain moksa. Any attempt to claim otherwise would yield the undesirable consequence of denying the valid relationship pertaining between the rise of Krttika and the rise of Sakata.
Prabhacandra is careful to point out here that the two capacities of going to the seventh hell and going to moksa are in no way directly related. However, he proposes a certain inherence (samavaya ) of these two capacities in a single whole, the soul of the individual person. Hence if a single soul has the capacity to fall into the seventh hell through extremely demeritorious action, that same soul must have the similar capacity to attain moksa through extremely pure actions. Thus the Digambaras are merely claiming that the inability of women to perform such extremely impure actions as would result in falling into the seventh hell allows one to infer that women are equally incapable of performing those perfectly pure actions—that is, to achieve the absolute perfection of the Three Jewels—which allow one to attain moksa. Without the absolute perfection of the Three Jewels, moksa will be impossible, for the law does not allow a result to follow without an initial cause. Therefore, the Digambaras reject the Svetambara claim that there is no association between falling into the seventh hell and attaining moksa.
#18 The Siddha-loka—the abode of the emancipated soul, wherein the soul remains eternally at the summit of the universe in all its omniscient glory—provides the next occasion for investigating a relevant scriptural passage that seems to allude to the possibility of a woman's attaining moksa. In an aphorism appearing in the tenth chapter of the Tattvarthasutra —the only Jaina treatise accepted by both the Digambaras and Svetambaras (including the Yapaniyas)—the author, Umasvati, lists the types of liberated souls from the standpoint of their worldly status prior
to becoming Siddhas.[12] Some Siddhas, for example, attained moksa from the continent of Jambudvipa, while others attained it from elsewhere; some attained Siddhahood at the time of a Tirthankara's appearance in the world, whereas others attained it in their absence. The controversial point in this aphorism is that the category of linga, literally "sign" but ordinarily referring to biological gender, is also listed.
The Jaina texts refer to three biological genders: male (pumlinga ); female (strilinga ); and indeterminate (napumsakalinga ), which roughly corresponds to a hermaphrodite in that its gender sign is not strictly male or female. By the last gender, Jainas understood only those who were born with features not explicitly male or female and not such beings as eunuchs, who might be neutered after birth. Both sects believed that these three gender signs were the results of nama-karma , that is, a karma which projects the appropriate bodies whereby one can distinguish a being as heavenly, infernal, animal, or human and recognize its sex within this destiny. It was also further believed by both sects that a hermaphrodite may not receive ordination, as its physical condition produced an incurable restlessness of mind that prevented it from the kind of concentration required for spiritual exercises. Its physical gender thus created mental indecision as to the objects of its sexual desire, which produced in turn an eternal insatiability of mind.
Corresponding to these three lingas, which were permanent physical features of one's given life, the Jainas also proposed three psychological sexual inclinations. Called vedas , these were the products of deluding (mohaniya ) karma, which was responsible for the arousal of sexual desires (veda, i.e., libido). A male's desire for a female would thus be known as pumveda , or male libido; a female's desire for a male as striveda , or female libido; and a hermaphrodite's desire for both male and female as napumsakaveda , or the hermaphrodite libido.[13] Regardless of their biological gender (linga), all human beings were believed capable of experiencing any of the three vedas. These libidos, however, must be totally annihilated by means of righteous meditation (dharmadhyana) before a person could practice the purest meditation (sukladhyana), a precondition for the attainment of Arhatship. The Siddha—a designation the Jainas applied exclusively to the totally disembodied soul of an Arhat after his death—was thus evidently free from both physical linga and psychological veda; yet, in a conventional manner, he could still be described as a Siddha who was formerly male or female (by gender) or a Siddha who experienced formerly, as he climbed to the summit of the spiritual path, any of the three libidos. The word "linga" that appears in this sutra of Umasvati is used by the
Svetambara to corroborate his contention that the scriptures allow moksa not only for males but also for females and even certain hermaphrodites (the noncongenital type).
#19 The Digambaras, who admit the appearance of the word "linga" in this sutra, contend, however, that the word should be interpreted instead as the psychological veda, whether of the male, the female, or the hermaphrodite. They cling to their belief that only a person who is physically male (i.e., a monk) is intended by the sutra. According to them the terms "stri" and "napumsaka" are used there (i.e., in the terms "strilinga-Siddha " and "napumsakalinga-Siddha ") to refer not to a former woman or a former hermaphrodite but to the past state of that kind of a monk who had started to climb the spiritual ladder (gunasthana , culminating in his Arhatship) with either a female libido (striveda) or a hermaphrodite libido (napumsakaveda). Such a monk may be called metaphorically female or hermaphrodite in view of this strange orientation, giving rise to such expressions as strilinga-Siddha or napumsakalinga-Siddha. Physically, however, he is male and had to destroy all forms of veda long before he could arrive at the stage of the Arhat (the thirteenth gunasthana) and finally become a Siddha (who is even beyond the gunasthana ladder).
#20 Although the Yapaniya author Sakatayana rejected the very idea of distinguishing libido along the lines of biological gender, arguing that sex desire, like anger or pride, is the same in man, woman, or hermaphrodite, this seems to be his personal view, for the scriptures of both the Svetambara and the Digambara sects accept the theory of three libidos. The Svetambaras therefore reject the Digambara interpretation of the scriptural passage on a different ground. They retort that if a man may be allowed to attain moksa even when he had previously experienced striveda (which was unnatural to him), then there are no grounds for denying moksa to a woman when she also similarly experienced striveda (which was, of course, natural to her). Moreover, if indulging in a sexual inclination that is contrary to his nature does not prevent a man from attaining moksa, then surely that option should be available to a woman also, and thus she too should be able to attain moksa if she has experienced pumveda.
#21 The Digambara reply to this objection appears in the following syllogism:
A being who is unable to attain moksa because of its physical body must necessarily be unable to attain it mentally also;
as, for example, animals and other nonhuman beings [who are barred from attaining moksa];
a woman is unable to attain moksa because of her female body; therefore she is unable to attain moksa even by experiencing the male libido.[14]
The Digambaras thus propose that, regardless of the type of sexuality a person may entertain internally, only a person who is physically male has the ability to destroy all karmas through the perfection of sukladhyana. The Digambaras' contention therefore follows from their fundamental idea that a female body is somehow inferior to a male body, as is expressed in the following syllogism:
Women are not worthy of attaining moksa;
because they are inferior to men (hinatvat );
as are hermaphrodites.[15]
#22 This fundamental inferiority of females is enunciated in the following argument used by the Digambaras:
A female body is not able to destroy the hosts of karmas;
because it is produced in association with that evil karma called wrong view (mithyatva );
as is the case with the bodies of hell beings and so forth.[16]
The significance of this syllogism is very grave. The Digambaras have maintained that a person who generates the Jaina view of reality (samyaktva or samyak-darsana ) may never again be reborn a female, regardless of whether at that time the person was male or female.[17] Although being born a man does not invariably mean that the person is endowed with samyaktva, birth as a woman is a sure indication that the soul inhabiting that body was endowed with mithyatva at the moment of birth. This rule applies invariably to all women, according to the Digambaras, including even the mothers of the Tirthankaras. Of course, there is nothing to prevent a woman from generating samyaktva at a subsequent moment in her life but, unlike men, she is considered incapable of perfecting it in her present body.
This lack of perfection proceeds as a direct result of her female body. As Kundakunda pointed out, her genital organs and the area between her breasts are a breeding ground of minute forms of life. (This leads the Svetambara author Meghavijaya to conclude: "For this reason, women suffer from constant itching caused by these beings, which does not allow them ever to have any cessation of sexual desire"; see Chapter VI, #12.) Menstruation is seen as a source of injury (himsa) to infinite numbers of submicroscopic lives, the demise of which inevitably disturbs the woman. Her body in general and menstruation in particular cause in her extreme forms of anxiety and mental restlessness (from which males by the very nature of their bodies are always free), thus preventing her from focusing her mind firmly on the holy path. It is even believed that the flow of
menstrual blood is not an involuntary (i.e., natural) function of a woman's body but the result of a sexual volition (veda, a variety of mohaniya-karma responsible for the emergence of sexual passion), a phenomenon comparable to a man's emission of semen (virya ) during a dream.[18] Her menstrual cycles are thus constant reminders to her as well as others that she is sexually desirable. This awareness begets shame (lajja ), which in turn leads to dependency on wearing clothes in order to shield herself from the lurid glances of men. It also makes her subject to the constant fear of being sexually assaulted by males thus making her dependent on society at large for protection. These two constant factors of shame and fear, which the Digambaras believe men may overcome, render a woman unfit to undertake the higher vows (mahavratas) of a mendicant or to pursue the upper reaches of the meditational states through which alone one may extirpate the libido (i.e., the veda) and thereby climb to the summit of the purest meditation (sukladhyana), which must terminate in moksa. For all these reasons, the Digambaras believe that the body of a woman is itself enough to render a woman incapable of attaining moksa.
#23 Strange as it may seem, the Svetambaras concur with the Digambara view that a person who has samyaktva at the time of his (or her) death may never again be reborn as a female. All the same, the Svetambaras have claimed there is one exception to this rule. This exception is described as an ascarya , or an extraordinary event, indeed a miracle; it applies to the person of Malli, the nineteenth Jina, the only female of the twenty-four Jinas of our time, of whom Mahavira was the last.[19] It may be of some interest for us to look into the legend of this female Jina, as it provides a rare insight into the factors thought to lead to rebirth as a woman.
#24 According to Svetambara legend, the soul that later became the female Malli was in a former (third from the last) life a king named Mahabala.[20] King Mahabala renounced the world together with seven friends, and they all became Jaina mendicants. It is customary for Jaina monks to engage in special austerities, such as fasting. All eight monks made a solemn agreement to undertake an identical number of fasts as part of their austerities. Now, Mahabala was by nature deceitful and constantly found excuses (such as ill health) to skip meals and thus broke the agreement by deviously accumulating a larger number of fasts than his friends. His conduct was otherwise faultless, and as a consequence of his great exertions in leading a holy life he generated such karmic forces as would yield him rebirth as a would-be Jina—that is, one whose conception (garbha ), birth (janma ), renunciation (diksa ), enlightenment (kevalajnana ), and death (nirvana) would be celebrated as auspicious events (kalyana ) by gods and
men. Even according to the Svetambara canon a Jina must possess a male body, but because of the cunning of the monk Mahabala he was, after completing a long period in a heaven, reborn among the humans not as a male Jina but as Malli, a female. Since it is inconceivable that a would-be Jina could be devoid of samyaktva at birth, the Svetambaras conclude that Malli was an exception to both karmic rules of rebirth—that a Jina must not be a female and that a woman may not be endowed with samyaktva at birth.
The legend tells us that whereas the monk Mahabala was born as a princess named Malli (lit., jasmine flower—because of her great beauty), the other seven monks were reborn as men, members of the warrior caste, rulers of neighboring kingdoms. They all sought Malli's hand in marriage and even went to war over her. Disgusted to be regarded as a sexual object and to be the cause of violence, she renounced the world while still young and, having gained kevalajnana or omniscience on the very day of her renunciation, became a Jina, thus attaining the status equal to that of Mahavira. The Yapaniyas appear to be unaware of this legend; the Digambaras vehemently reject it as blasphemy and consider it a Svetambara fabrication to support their theory that a nun can attain moksa. According to them Malli (or rather Mallinatha as he is called) was male, a member of a royal family, and pursued the career of a would-be Jina in the same manner as did the other Jinas, that is, by strictly observing the vows of a Digambara monk. Notwithstanding these two versions of the story, we may note that all Jainas share in the belief that such vices as cheating and crookedness (called maya in Jaina texts) are the fundamental causes of rebirth as a woman.[21]
#25 Returning to the Digambara argument that a person with samyaktva may not be reborn as a woman, the Svetambara contends that this karmic rule in itself should not hinder a woman's attaining moksa, since, as even the Digambaras admit, samyaktva can be generated at a subsequent time in a woman's life; thus an initial presence of mithyatva need not prevent a woman from later attaining the same goal as a male. With respect to the oft-repeated Digambara objection concerning a woman's dependence on wearing clothes—which allegedly stands in the way of her perfecting right conduct (samyak-caritra) to the same level as a naked male mendicant—the Svetambaras say that clothes are not to be considered possessions (parigraha) for a nun but rather aids to leading the holy life; they therefore are comparable to the small whisk broom (rajoharana or pinchi , a bunch of peacock feathers allowed even for a Digambara monk.
#26 This brings us to what is probably the worst stumbling block in reconciling the Digambara and Svetambara positions: the dispute over the permissibility of a monk's wearing clothes, on the one hand, and the prohibition against nudity for women, on the other, which virtually precluded women from moksa. The following syllogism is proposed by the Digambaras:
The holy conduct of women is insufficient to attain moksa;
because that conduct is dependent upon possessions [i.e., clothes];
as in the case of householders [who are also barred from attaining moksa because of their property and other possessions].[22]
#27 The Svetambara answer to this argument is, as pointed out earlier, that clothes should be considered an aid to the attainment of moksa, as are such requisites as the whisk broom, and should not be called property (parigraha). The Svetambaras accept the Digambaras' assertion that a householder may not attain moksa, but the cause they cite is his attachment to possessions, which nuns are presumed to have overcome. The Tattvarthasutra (vii, 12) declares that "Possession means attachment" (murccha ); for the Svetambaras, therefore, attachment, not possession, is the issue. In the absence of such attachment, a nun's wearing clothes should be considered conducive to her keeping the precepts as well as indicative of her obedience to the injunction against nudity. The Digambaras might still insist that, despite her lack of attachment, a nun remains infatuated with clothes simply because she is compelled to continue wearing them. But the Svetambaras reject this claim, raising the comparison of a Digambara mendicant seated in meditation on whom clothes are forced: if the Digambaras believe that that monk, because of the continued presence of nonattachment in his mind, has not broken the vow of nonpossession (aparigraha ) even though he is "wearing" clothes at the time, they would also have to admit that a nun is similarly not rendered unfit for moksa just because she too is compelled to wear clothes.
#28 The Digambara counters this apparently unassailable argument by demonstrating the crucial difference between the nun and the monk in the example. In the case of the Digambara monk on whom clothes are forced, the Digambara maintains that the monk will certainly discard those clothes once he rises from his meditation. Even more important, once those clothes fall from his body, he will not entertain the thought of picking them up—certain proof of his being truly unattached to clothes. In the case of a nun, however, if clothes fall off her, she will deliberately pick them up—a sure sign of her continued attachment to those clothes. This point can be proved in the following manner:
If something that has fallen is deliberately picked up, this proves there is no absence of attachment in the person who so picks it up;
as in the case of gold and so forth [being picked up].
Women do deliberately pick up clothes [when fallen];
therefore, there is no absence of attachment for nuns, since they deliberately pick up [things that have fallen].[23]
#29 The Svetambara rejoinder is simply that a nun is merely obeying the injunction to remain clothed. But the dilemma over whether attachment is present in her remains unresolved. The Svetambara reply to this argument is that a nun's picking up clothes is comparable to a naked monk's picking up his whisk broom when he rises from his meditation, an act that is also deliberate and yet considered blameless.
#30 The Digambaras' answer leads us back to their original premise that clothes are not appropriate requisites for keeping the precepts. They maintain that the monk uses the whisk broom to protect the lives of small insects that might alight on his seat; it is, therefore, a legitimate requisite for keeping his precept of ahimsa. Clothes, on the contrary, are a breeding ground for lice and their eggs; they also give rise to many anxieties and further one's dependence on the lay people who produce them. Precisely for these reasons the Tirthankaras have declared that clothes are possessions which should be renounced by an aspirant, in the same way that he should renounce such internal possessions as wrong views and passions. The following syllogism is offered in defense of this position:
Clothes are not conducive to moksa;
because their renunciation is enjoined;
as [is the renunciation of] wrong views.[24]
The Digambara position in this regard does not allow any compromise. The Digambara therefore insists that a woman wears clothes not so much to guard her precepts as to hide her shame (lajja, a form of passion born of mohaniya-karma) and to protect herself from possible attack.
#31 The Svetambara admits that washing and wearing clothes may entail some superficial harm. But he maintains that the great spiritual benefits that accrue to women from wearing clothes—without which they would be unable to lead the holy life—more than outweigh the slight amount of injury (himsa ) that those clothes engender. Clothes, therefore, should not be considered an impediment to moksa for women.
#32 The Digambara answer to this rejoinder is that they too prefer, indeed require, that nuns wear clothes; they too are not blind to the spiritual advantages that accrue to women who try to follow in the footsteps of the mendicant monks. But they insist that the paths of those male mandicants
who go without clothes (acelaka ) and those female religious who wear clothes (sacelaka ) are fundamentally different and do not lead to the same goal. By logic, paths that begin separately cannot end in the same goal; therefore the Digambara rejects the equivalence of these two paths. The holy life of a nun falls a great deal short of complete renunciation and thus. is ultimately comparable to the religious life of a layperson. Therefore, like the householder, she may be admitted to heaven, but she will be unable to attain moksa in her present life. If the Svetambaras nonetheless continue to insist that a man's wearing clothes does not violate the precepts concerning nonpossession (aparigraha) or noninjury (ahimsa), then they must also admit that one of these two kinds of moksa is inferior to the other—a position their own scripture does not support.
#33 The significance of the scriptural passages cited above by the Digambaras and Svetambaras concerning the inability of women either to fall into the seventh hell or to renounce clothes completely is debatable. But the adherents of the two sects have not relied entirely on scriptural testimony in advocating their beliefs. The Digambaras in particular have sought to strengthen their arguments by taking recourse to the inferior position of women both within Indian society as a whole as well as within the ecclesiastical order.
Although the Upanisads attest to the debating abilities of Brahmanical women like Gargi Vacaknavi (Zaehner, 1966, pp. 55-57), it is a lamentable fact of Indian monastic life that although technically women were not denied the study of the scriptures, it was certainly not their forte. There must, of course, have been learned women both in the Jaina and Buddhist orders of nuns, and they would probably have been allowed at one time to take part in the debates commonly held between adherents of rival schools, as witnessed by such texts as the Jaina Uttaradhyayana-sutra and the Buddhist Therigatha . But in the postcanonical period of both religions, the role of women gradually receded until ultimately they were allowed to study only the most rudimentary texts pertaining to conduct, not the rival philosophical doctrines that men publicly debated. Participation in such debates was not merely a matter of scholarship; it also demanded demonstrable occult powers, whereby the guardian deities (sasana-devata ) of one's own school—for example, the goddesses Cakaresvari for the Jainas and Tara for the Buddhists—could be summoned to help defeat one's rival.[25] Such powers, called labdhis , were deemed the prerogative of males only, who generated them through the impetus of their austerities and yogic powers. The laity, of course, was considered incapable of developing
such powers, but society at large regarded nuns equally powerless, barred by their sex from invoking these deities or from indulging in any form of Tantric practices to call up these "guardians." For the Digambaras, the incompetence of nuns in such mundane matters as the ability to engage in debates or to generate occult powers indicated that they were equally incapable in such supramundane concerns as attaining that omniscience which is produced through extraordinary moral purity.
#34 The Svetambaras' rejoinder is to the point: women may not participate in debate or develop occult powers; but there is no proof that such things are invariably linked with moksa. Even the Digambaras must admit that countless souls, known as muka-kevalins (or silent Omniscient Beings) have attained moksa without uttering even a single word. Therefore, unless the Digambaras are able to prove an invariable concomitance between engaging in debate and attaining moksa, their point is moot and actually reflects social prejudice, which is totally out of place in serious discussion.
#35 While the Digambaras cannot demonstrate any invariable concomitance between the two factors, their rebuttal falls back on their central thesis: women cannot achieve the perfection of holy conduct and hence are unable to attain moksa. Their inference is again based on the indicator/indicated relationship: this imperfection is proved, they say, by women's inability to participate in debate or generate psychic powers, which allegedly result not so much from learning as from the rigors of austerities (tapas ) and the purity of conduct. According to them, the latter are possible only to a Digambara monk, not to a nun, who fails to achieve purity of conduct.
#36 The disparity between the status of nuns and monks within the Svetambara order provides the Digambaras with still another point on which to reassert their original claim that women are inherently inferior to men and thus may not attain moksa. As was observed above, in the Digambara sect a woman may rise no higher than to the status of an advanced laywoman (uttama-sravika ), even though she is given the title "nun" (aryika) out of courtesy. Her position, therefore, both technically and in practice, is inferior to that of a monk, though superior to that of lay people. But this is not so in the Svetambara sect. There women are considered the equals of men in leading the holy life, since both assume the same mendicant precepts and may possess the same degree of perfection in conduct. Technically, therefore, there is no disparity between them, although in practical terms a Svetambara nun fares little better than her
Digambara counterpart. This is manifest from the Svetambara mendicant law, which stipulates that:
Even if a nun is ordained for a hundred years she must pay homage to a young monk, even if that monk has been ordained that very day, by going forth to meet him and by greeting him in reverence.[26]
She may, moreover, confess to monks and be admonished by them but is prohibited from assuming those duties herself. The Digambaras seized on this discrepancy between the technical and practical status of Svetambara nuns and asserted that the nuns' inferior status in the rival ecclesiastical order proves their inherent inferiority in reaching the required perfection without which moksa would be impossible.
#37 The Svetambaras' reply to this challenge is virtually identical to the previous one: there is no logical connection, let alone any invariable concomitance, between having one's greetings returned and attaining moksa. They use the example of a teacher and his disciple to illustrate this point: the teacher may not greet the disciple, but the disciple can still attain moksa. The Digambaras' rebuttal is also a restatement of their earlier position. Agreed, there is no concomitance between being greeted and going to moksa; however, the Svetambaras must not forget that only those disciples who first attain perfection will attain moksa, and attaining perfection is not a universal occurrence. Otherwise, the Svetambara would have to admit that all disciples, regardless of their preparation, may attain moksa.
In support of their claim, the Digambaras offer a counterexample of the sons and daughters of a king. According to Indian laws of primogeniture only the eldest son may inherit the throne; however, the disenfranchised princes do not then become equal in status to the princesses. Princes may be considered for kingship under different circumstances; princesses, however, are never entitled to inherit the throne. In the same way, whether a disciple is greeted by a teacher or not, he may attain moksa only if he achieves the required moral perfection; it is therefore invalid to compare him to women, who are inherently ineligible for that achievement.
#38 In continuation of the same argument, the Digambara shows the inferiority of women with regard to worldly status as well. The inference is syllogistically framed:
There is no attainment of the higher status [i.e., moksa] by women;
because they are unworthy of the higher status desired by yogins, householders, or gods;
as is the case with hermaphrodites.[27]
The Digambaras assert that the highest status attainable by a layman is that
of the cakravartin (universal) king, while the highest status attainable by a heavenly being is that of Sakra (Indra), the king of the gods. No female is ever known to have attained either of these two most exalted states. Since even these worldly statuses are denied to women, it follows that they would certainly not be able to attain the supramundane status of Siddhahood. In every household as well, the man, not the woman, is master of the house. This situation also indicates to the Digambaras the inherent inferiority of women.
#39 The sectarian dispute between the Digambaras and Svetambaras concerning the salvation of women might never have taken place if the Svetambara scriptures had not affirmed that Mahavira himself (unlike Gautama the Buddha, for example) had practiced nudity and that women could not be reborn in the lowest hell (a matter on which all other Indian schools are also silent). The debate between the two sects, as outlined above, hinges on the significance of these two factors for understanding the Jaina attitude toward the position of woman as mendicant and her ability to attain that perfection (allegedly attained by men) without which moksa is not possible. For the Digambaras, it is a woman's anatomy that prevents her from observing the highest precepts of mendicancy (inclusive of nakedness), which in turn accounts for her lack of moral perfection. For the Svetambara, possession denotes not the material things themselves but mental attachment to them. The crucial point of the controversy would thus appear to be the definitions of the words "parigraha" and "vitaraga"—that is, what constitutes a possession and what is its relationship to the absence of passions? Given the entirely literal interpretation of the term "parigraha" by the Digambaras, and the Svetambara claim that clothes per se do not constitute possessions whether for a man or a woman, it is not surprising that the Jainas could not resolve the problem of a nun's moksa. Furthermore, to non-Jainas the whole argument would appear to be fallacious, since it is not possible to prove a person's freedom from passions from his lack of possessions. This was in fact pointed out by the great Buddhist logician Dharmakirti, who used the Digambara argument to illustrate a logical fallacy called "uncertainty" (sandigdha ). To quote Dharmakirti, the following Digambara statements are wrong:
Kapila [the Samkhya teacher] and others are not free from passions;
because they are subject to the acquisition of property.
and
One who is free from passions is not subject to acquisition;
for example, Rsabha, the Jaina teacher.[28]
This Jaina argument, says Dharmakirti, is fallacious because the relationship between the lack of freedom from passions and acquisitions, as well as their absence in Rsabha, is dubious. Hence this is a case of the negative example being defective inasmuch as one can doubt the absence of both the thing to be proved (sadhya ) and the reason thereof (hetu ).[29] This dubious relationship itself is the only thing that allows the contrary claims of the two Jaina sects to stand—the Digambara view that a woman cannot achieve the perfection of pure conduct (samyak-caritra) and the Svetambara contention that clothes do not constitute parigraha and therefore do not prevent a woman from attaining perfection equivalent to that of a male.