Dr. Samani Mangal Pragya
The foundation of Vinayavāda is humility or modesty. They believe that through humility everything is achievable. According to Sūtrakṛtāṅga Cūrṇi, followers of Vinayavāda uphold that we must not criticize or speak ill of any ascetic or householder. There should be modesty and due respect towards all.[1] There are thirty two types of Vinayavāda. Deities, king, monk, wanderer, old, miser, mother and father - service must be rendered to all of them with body, speech, mind and donations.[2] Multiplication of these eight with four comes to the number thirty two. According to the Sūtrakṛtāṅga Cūrṇi, dānāmā and prāṇāma initiation etc. are included under vinayavāda.[3]
Dānāmā and Prāṇāmā Initiations
In the Bhagavatī Sūtra, there is a mention of dānāmā and Prāṇāmā (saluting) initiation. In the Tamalipti city, there was a person by the name of Tamali Gathapati. He accepted prāṇāmā initiation. The nature of Prāṇāmā initiation is explained in that context. After getting initiation in this order, Tamali used to pay obeisance to whomsoever and wherever he happened to meet indra, skandha, rudra, shiva, vaishramana, durga, camunda or dignitaries like king, police, army-personnel, government officials or merchant class people, like, Koutumbika, Ibhya, Shreshthi or Sarthavaha, and even a dog or crow or a person of the low caste. Whenever he meets a person from the high class, he offers obeisance with extra-ordinary humbleness, and when he meets a person from the low class, he offers obeisance with commonplace humbleness.[4]
Purana Gathapati, got initiated into the Dānāmā initiation, which prescribes a special ritual for distributing and consuming alms. The follower of this discipline keeps a quadripartite wooden bowl. Whatever was received in the first quadrant, he used to distribute to the bypassers. Whatever was received in the second quadrant, he distributed to the crows and dogs. Whatever was received in the third quadrant, was distributed to the sea beings like fish etc. and what was received in the fourth quadrant, was kept for the self use. This is the conduct of the ascetics initiated in the tradition of the Dānāmā.[5]
Meaning of Vinaya
The word 'vinaya' has been used with several implications in the canonical literature of the Jains.[6] The commentator Śīlankācārya has rendered the meaning of 'vinaya' to be vinamrata i.e. modesty, but, Acharya Mahapragya opines that in the present context vinaya means ācāra (conduct). To prove his view, he has quoted many references from the Jain āgamas. In the Jñātādharmakathā text, Jain-religion has been defined as vinayamūlakadharma i.e. vinaya based religion. Thāvaccāputra says to Śukadeva, that 'vinaya is the foundation of my religion.[7]' Here, the word 'vinaya' is used to denote Mahāvrata (great vows) and Aṇuvrata (small vows) which have to be practiced by Jain monk and Jain lay-follower.
The Buddhist text, named 'Vinayapiṭaka' contains a discussion about 'conduct'. The word 'vinaya' had been employed to refer to 'conduct' at several places. Modesty and conduct- both these meanings are equally acceptable for the word 'vinaya'. People who believed that only through following the code of conduct, one can purify one's behaviour, were called 'silabbataparāmāsa'.[8] In any sense even modesty is part of conduct, so, it is included in the ācāravāda, but, if vinaya is confined to modesty alone, then, the whole domain of ācāravāda can not find place in it.
In those days, two streams were prevalent, namely' Believers in knowledge (Jñanavadī)' and 'believers in conduct (ācāravādī)'. The Jñānavādī believed in the absolute necessity of knowledge for liberation, similarly, ācāravādī upheld conduct to be the ultimate necessity for liberation. Just as the absolutist believers in knowledge (Jñaānavādī) emphasize the efficacy of knowledge, deprecating conduct/behaviour, similarly, the absolutist vinayavādī emphasize the efficacy of behaviour or conduct subjugating knowledge altogether. They are considered as heretics because they are absolutists. Vinayavāda has propounded an absolutely conduct-based doctrine. Actually, vinayavāda is part of ācāravāda only, that is why it is treated as a branch of ācāravāda. But, if we restrict the meaning of vinaya, to only modesty alon, then, ācāravāda (conduct based doctrine) cannot be included in that.[9]
Vaśiṣṭa Parāśara and others were the prominent Acharyas of this tradition.[10] As it was mentioned earlier, the 363 traditions are based on a mathematical calculation. It has also been mentioned in detail in the 'Gommaṭasara'.[11]
A kriyāvādī accepts the object as existent in an absolutistic sense. From both points of view of the self as well as the others, it exists in an absolute sense. From the viewpoint of eternality and non eternality, it exists eternally. Time, God, soul, destiny and nature, all the nine substances viz. living, non-living etc. are exclusively existents, from the dimensions like self, other, eternality, and non-eternality. Multiplying them in combination, we get 180 branches of akriyāvāda.[12]
On the contrary, akriyāvādī accepts the object as non existent from all perspectives. In the akriyāvāda, there are no concepts like puṇya, pāpa, nitya and anitya. Seven substances when multiplied with the self and the other perspectives of time, god etc. they reach upto seventy types and the substance is non existent from the dimensions like time, destiny etc., and when these are multiplied, we get fourteen types of it. By the addition of seventy and fourteen, it comes to eighty four. We can know from the Gommaṭasāra, that there were two conceptions among the akriyāvādīs. The first category rejected the existense of the soul, from the perspective of the five factors like time, destiny etc. and the others rejected it, only on the basis of time and destiny. If both the beliefs are brought together, we get eighty four types or branches of akriyāvādīs.[13]
This analysis shows that the philosophers in the tradition of concept of time etc. were both kriyāvādī and akriyāvādī. Those who accepted the existence of jīva, ajīva etc. on the basis of time etc. were called kriyāvādī and those who rejected the existence of jīva, ajīva etc. on the basis of time etc. were called akriyāvādī. Why the akriyāvādī had rejected the existence of puṇya, pāpa, eternality and non-eternality etc., is still a matter of analysis.
