The Doctrine of the Jainas, Described after the Old Sources c6.243

Language: English

c6.243.1

§34. Apart from dealing with the Digambaras, Dharmasāgara in his publication finally refers to a number of branches which for the lack of essential material divergencies would scarcely be designated as *kupakṣa* by any impartial author. He himself belonged to the Tapā-Gaccha. In linguistic usage the gaccha follows on the *gaṇa*.⁴ In the course of time there are said to have been numerous gacchas or Orders which is frequently expressed by the figure of 84 (§ 16)¹, but only few of them have come to gain any considerable and lasting importance. Thanks to the disposition of the Jains for chronicling we have comprehensive lists of teachers to inform us accordingly.² They usually go by the name of paṭṭāvali in the sense of paṭṭadhar’āvali since in this connexion paṭṭa means "place of honour, throne". He who occupies it bears the title of Sūri, and he personally appoints his successor. Frequently the lists (chronicles) are traced back to Sudharman, or even to Mahāvīra who, however, is not everywhere considered as paṭṭa-dhara.³ The Upakeśa-Gaccha, to refer to this list first, even goes back to Pāsa which follows from an intended relation to Keśin, the disciple of Pārśva known from Uvanga.

c6.243.2

The fabulous paṭṭāvali of this Gaccha probably written in the 2nd half of the 17th century,⁴ proves as an exception to the rule that these chronicles are mines of reliable dates regarding the history of Jain Orders and writings.⁵ Upakeśa is said to be the later Os near Jodhpur from where the commercial Jain caste of the Osvāl derive. A collection of the Śvet. lists in a Paṭṭavalisamuccaya has been started by Muni DARŚANA-VIJAYA (Bh. 1, Cāritrasmāraka-GM. 22. Viramgām 1933).⁶ Now it is Dharmasāgara who, in a Prakrit-Gurvāvali⁷ with an individual Sanskrit comment, notes the history of the Tapā-Gaccha who, so he says, took this name but as the sixth after that of the *nirgrantha*- and those of Koṭika-, Candra-, Vanavāsī and Vaṭa-Gaccha, altogether names which are explained in different ways. Different from two other lists presently to be mentioned, this list by starting from Uddyotana, the 35th Sūri (till s. 994), follows its own way as that of Vaṭa- or Bṛhad-G. and leads up to the 44thSūri, Jagaccandra, who equally gained fame as a reformer and as a triumphant disputant, but who as a stern fasting ascetic came to be given the surname of Tapā (*Tapā-biruda*) (s.1285)¹. Still today the Tapā-G. enjoys a high reputation. This also applies to the Kharatara-G. and others, whom to attack is a special concern of Dharmasāgara's in his work.

c6.243.3

In their *paṭṭāvali*² the Kharatara, too, appear beyond the time of Uddyotana just as the formation of the above mentioned 84 gacchas is said to go back to the same number of Uddyotana's pupils who are said to have been blessed by him individually in a ceremony before he died.³ One of them, and hence the first Kharatara-Sūri proper, was Vardhamāna (till s. 1088)⁴, by origin a *caityavāsin*, who were energetically attacked by his own pupil, Jineśvara (s. 1080), as we have seen in § 31. This report of the Kharatarasa, however, Dharmasāgara⁵ declares to be false owing to historic dates,⁶ and he refutes the statements it contains also elsewhere. Acc. to him it was Jinadatta (s. 1204) who came to be the first Kharatara, and it is said that his activities equally account for his further names⁷: Cāmuṇḍika, because Jinadatta dedicated a prayer to Cāmuṇḍā, and Auṣṭrika, because he fled on a camel. As to the peculiarities of the Kh. we hear of them from Jinadatta himself by an *Utsūtrapadāghāṭanakulaka* (30 G.), by a Sāmāyārī, and again, most comprehensively, from Dharmasāgara in his Auṣṭri-kamatotsūtrodghāṭanakulaka commented by himself (18 G.)¹. By a change of the sign the last small text implicitly teaches us to know the standpoint of the Tapās. The various points of divergence scarcely concern anything but irrelevant matters of praxis.

c6.243.4

As being of some slightly greater importance we, therefore, but mention that women may not worship the Jina (*itthi-jiṇa-pūya-nisehaṇa*), that there is no fasting beyond the *cauttha* (§ 156), that laymen will not exercise *paḍimā* (§ 163), that the Cāmuṇḍā and other local deities may be worshipped, and that the ceremony of Mahāvīra’s being put into another womb is to be celebrated as his sixth *kallāṇaga*².