Life in Ancient India as Depicted in the Jain Canons, with Commentaries: An Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey c12.s8.13

c12.s8.13

Jain texts mention a number of women of wicked nature, thereby preaching the ascetic ideal of renunciation. We hear of Mayanamañjarī, the wife of prince Agadadatta, who fell in love with another man and made an attempt on the life of her husband, which caused the prince to renounce the world and join the ascetic order.⁸ Then we are told of a banker's wife, who had illicit connections with some young man The father-in-law of the woman told his son about it but he would not believe that his wife had been of false faith. Later on she was put to an ordeal of entering into a Jakkha temple. The ordeal resulted in a guilty person remaining in the temple for ever, while the non-guilty came out free The banker's wife visited the Jakkha, who was her own paramour in the disguise of a Pisāca, and said "if I love any other person except the man to whom I had been given in wedlock by my parents, 'you, the Ghost', should know." The Jakkha got perplexed and began to think that even he had been cheated by her In the meantime she came out of the temple and her father-in-law was put to humiliation by the people.⁹