A History of the Canonical Literature of the Jainas c8.10

c8.10

It was in the time of Bhadrabāhusvāmin that Magadha had to face the calamity resulting from a twelve-year famine. This seriously affected the study of the *Jaina* saints who could hardly get sufficient alms even by begging from door to door. This resulted in their forgetting *Diṭṭhivāya*-a fact those saints became conversant with, when they assembled after *subhikṣā* had set in, and *durbhikṣā* had disappeared, Thereupon, they sent a pair of Munis, technically known as *saṅghāṭaka* to Bhadrabāhusvāmin who was practising *mahāprāṇa* in Nepal; for, he was the only one who was then in a position to remember and teach *Diṭṭhivāya*. He, however, declined to teach *Diṭṭhivāya* on the ground that he was then engaged in practising *mahāprāṇa*, a *dhyāna*, he could not attend to, during the twelve-year famine. The two Munis on their return informed the *saṅgha* accordingly. It thereupon sent another pair of Munis asking them to put a question to Bhadrabāhusvāmin as to the penalty prescribed for disobeying the order of the Jaina church, and to prescribe this very penalty to him for the same offence committed by him. The two Munis reached Nepal and asked the desired question to Bhadrabāhusvāmin. He answered: one who does not obey the order of the Jaina church deserves to be excommunicated. Thereupon, the two Munis said that the Jaina church assembled in Magadha, had prescribed this very penalty to him inasmuch as he had refused to teach *Diṭṭhivāya*. Bhadrabāhusvāmin quickly realized the situation and conditionally agreed to teach *Diṭṭhivāya*.¹ The underlying condition was that he would neither talk to the taught nor the taught should talk to him--exchange a single word with him when he was engaged in teaching or even otherwise, and that he would impart lessons by seven instalments during a day.² This being agreed upon, 500