Life in Ancient India as Depicted in the Jain Canons, with Commentaries: An Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey c5.s6.13

c5.s6.13

It may be stated that both these legends are of sufficiently late origin and hence cannot be relied upon fully. In fact, the division of Jains in Śvetāmbara and Digambara community was a gradual process,⁸² and in the early history of Jainism the Church was not divided into sects. The Jain inscriptions of the first and second century A.D. found at the Kaṅkālī Ṭīlā Mathura also do not show any trace of schism in the Jain Church. We have already noticed that both practices wearing clothes or going undressed were allowed in the Jain Church although Mahāvīra himself went about naked. In course of time the difference regarding the question of a monk wearing clothes became more and more acute.