Life in Ancient India as Depicted in the Jain Canons, with Commentaries: An Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey c14.t1.85

c14.t1.85

Then we come to women. Throughout the Jain texts the Jain monks are warned not to have any association with women. It is stated that as a pot filled with lac thrown into fire melts quickly and is destroyed, so the monks are lost through association (*samvāsa*) with women.⁴⁹ A woman is compared to a poisoned thorn⁵⁰ and the monks are instructed to avoid a woman even if her hands and feet are cut off and her ears and nose mutilated.⁵¹