Textual Authority in Ritual Procedure: The Śvetāmbara Jain Controversy Concering Īryāpathikīpratikramaa

Author: Dundas, Paul

Source: Journal of Indian Philosophy, Volume 39, Number 3, June 2011 , pp. 327-350(24)

Publisher: Springer

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Abstract:

The ceremony of īryāpathikīpratikramaa in which a renunciant or lay person repents for any violence inflicted on living creatures during motion is one of the central rituals of Jain disciplinary observance. The correct procedure for this ritual and its connection to sāmāyika, temporary contemplative withdrawal, were discussed during the first millennium CE in the Śvetāmbara Āvaśyaka literature. The Āvaśyaka Cūri and the Mahāniśītha Sūtra offer two alternative orderings, with the former text prescribing that īryāpathikīpratikramaa be carried out after sāmāyika and the latter text recommending that no religious activity should be engaged in without being preceded by īryāpathikīpratikramaa. The validity of these apparently contradictory ritual structures was debated by Dharmasāgara of the Tapā Gaccha and Jayasoma of the Kharatara Gaccha in the context of intra-Śvetāmbara controversy over scriptural hermeneutics in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Keywords: Āvaśyaka; Pratikramaa; Repentance; Sāmāyika; Āvaśyaka Cūri; Mahāniśītha Sūtra; Śvetāmbara Jain sectarianism; Dharmasāgara; Jayasoma

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10781-011-9129-9

Affiliations: 1: University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK, Email: P.Dundas@ed.ac.uk

Publication date: 2011-06-01