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FASTING UNTO DEATH ACCORDING TO AYARANGASUTTA AND TO SOME PAINNAYAS
Colette Caillat
In a recent paper "On Samlekhanā or Suspention of Aliment", Dr. Tatia considered the rational aspects of this "important item of the Jaina code of spiritual discipline", and referred to a similar practice in Brahmanism and Buddhism.1
It is here proposed to sketch a comparison between the teachings which are imparted on this subject in one of the oldest, and, on the other hand, in some of the more recent parts of the Svetambara Siddhanta, viz., in the so-called Vimoha, "eighth" chapter of the Bambh (aceräim)2 and in the often short disciplinary treatises which, grouped in the P(ainnayas) deal, as the titles show, with the rituals of voluntary death.3
To the modern reader, the general conditions appear to be much more rigorous, stern, in the Ãyar, which, in fact, exclusively deals with the niggantha, whereas the P also consider the conduct of the faithful sävaka.
In the latter, both layman and monk seem to be admitted to this form of religious "suicide": after the preliminary rites
1.
2.
3.
Shri Mahavir Jaina Vidyalaya Golden Jubilee Volume, I, pp. 139-142. Or Ãyār(anga 1): Acârânga-sūtra. Erster Śrutaskandha. Text, Analyse und Glossar, von Walther Schubring, 1910 (AKM 12.4): references are to page and line.
Catuhsaran' adı-Maraṇasamadhy-antam Prakirṇaka-daśakam. Bombay s. 1983 (AgS): Caus (arana), A(urapaccakkhāṇa), M (ahāpace) Bhattaparinna), S(amthāra), Mar (aṇasamâhı). Sırı C(andāvejhaya) Painṇayam, ed. Caturvijaya, Patan, 1941. The P, especially the Bh, S (eventually A, M) are critically analysed by Kurt von Kamptz, Über die vom Sterbefasten handelnden alteren Painna des Jaina-Kanons. Hamburg, 1929
M.M.-15
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