Jainism and Karnataka Culture

SR No.: 011062
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: S R Sharma
Publisher: Karnataka Historical Research Society Dharwar
Publication Year: 1940
Total Pages: 263
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 9 MB

Page 184

JAINISM AND KARNATAKA CULTURE
declared, "If women had not received the going-forth (i. e. initiation) in the doctrine and discipline, the religious system (Brahmacarya) would have lasted long, the good doctrine would have stayed for a thousand years; but as women have gone forth, now the religious system will not last long, now, Ananda, the good doctrine will last only five hundred years." 44 Similarly, with regard to house-holders: 'Cramped and confined is house-hold life," said Buddha, "a den of dust; but the life of the homeless one is as the open air of heaven. Hard is it for him who bides at home to live out, as it should be lived, the Holy Life in all its perfection, in all its purity!" 45
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And Manu, in spite of his oft-quoted line reg godà cửà : prohibited woman even to read the Vedas,—a prohibition which he places on woman and Šūdra alike.46 This raises the suspicion that the causes may have been cognate, viz., that like the Sūdras a considerable section of Aryan wives might have at that time come from the hated Dasyu or non-Aryan.
But whatever the reasons, the above parallels, illustrate the genesis of the Digambara attitude towards woman, which had its roots in the psychological back-ground of the age. The Jainas justify it on purely philosophical grounds. In many other respects, as well, Jainism resembled Buddhism on the one hand, and Brahmanism on the other. In the opinion of Prof. Bühler, Jainism stands nearer the Brāhmaṇa than the Buddhist system." Learned comparisions have been made by him and other scholars like Prof. Jacobi and Dr. Bhandarkar; but with this, however, we are not here directly concerned.48 The question of borrowing and indebtness is also vain to discuss, and we can only say, in the words of Jacobi, that the various systems " are
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41 Cf. Thomas, The Life of Buddha, pp. 108-109.
45 Majjima Nikaya II, p. 99 (tr. S'liacara); cf. Mookerji, Men and Thought in Ancient India, pp. 35-7; Rhys Davids, Buddism, p. 125. 46 Manusmrti, Chs. V 155, IX 18, and IV 80.
47 Bühler, op. cit., pp. 11-12; Baudhayana II, 10-18, S.B.E. XIV, p. 275. 48 Jacobi, 8, B. E. XXII Introd., pp. xiii, xvii-xxiv and xxxiii-XXXV; E.R.E. VII, p. 465 cf. Bhandarkar, op. cit., pp. 101-102,