Page 515 of: Paumacariya (critical study)

486
A CRITICAL STUDY OF PAUMACARIYAM
them for seeking spiritual emancipation. This disgust developed on
accont of various kinds of wordly incidents. Some of the political
reasons which led to asceticism were the defeat and humiliatlon in the
battle(12.136;13.17; 37.64-65); preferring renouncement to submission.
to other king (9.44-46); and disgust from the horror of huge massacre
in the battlefield (4.52). The household incident which led to asceticism
were the lust of wealth and then enmity between sons and their mother
(55.43), personal weakness in observing chastity (105.108); lustful eye
on the flesh of one's own sister (3996); desire for another's wife and
then lamentation (12.24); being not chosen in 'svayamṃvara' (106.27);
being kidnapped by another man (30.70); being forcibly raped
(103.102); losing one's own beyond recovery (26.20); one's wife
being forcibly kept by another king and the unbearable pains of
separation (21.5; 105.98); parent's getting separated from their son and
daughter-in-law (30.65-67); the death of husband in the battle and
sons' renouncement (6.75,82-84), the death of sons (5.197), the death
of relatives (75.76-77; 110.37); mother being separated from her son
who had taken dikṣā (83.9-12); wife in separation of her husband
who took dīkṣā (21.73), one's brothers' renunciation (113.70), or by
friendship and by association (6.98).
Sītā on account of being blamed by the public and due to her
husnand's doubt in her character, developed disguest for worldly
miseries and became a nun (102.46). Rāma on being disgusted with
various vicissitudes in worldly life (113.69) accepted asceticism.
Kings are generally said to be renouncing the world at the time of
their old age after transferring the crown to their sons (21.27: 5.250;
6.154). Some took dīkṣā on having listened to the religious discourses
from monks on the worldly miseries (5.164; 31.55; 32.21) or having
heard the account of their miserable previous births (5.215: 6.147).
Sometimes very trivial causes were responsible for renouncing
the world such as on seeing the blue cloth (3.122) or a waning winter
cloud (21.22) or the grabing of the sun by Rāhu (21.81) or the
bee dying in the lotus (5.218) or the sky overcast with clouds and
devoid of the moon (108.23-24-47) or the withering lotuses (5.55).
reveals
Eligibility for becoming a Jaina monk:-The Paumacariyam
that there was no age-limit¹ for entering the ascetic order. Any
person at any period of his age could
enter the Order. Women
were freely admitted without any distinction of sex or age.
1. 21.72. 77; 22.21; 25.20; 39.47; 41.63; 80.26; 103.702; 106.46; 110.41.
2. 30.67.70;41.63; 103.102.
In addi-