Sivabhuti

Śvetāmbara texts accuse of starting the Digambara tradition with "eight concealments"^[8][9] of rejection of Jain texts followed and preserved by Śvetāmbaras.

According to the Śvetāmbaras, the Digambara sect was formed by a rebellious monk named Sivabhuti in 82 AD.^[10] But Dr. Sagarmal Jain states that shivbhuti started Yapaniya (Botik) sect and not Digambara sect.^[6] Even the Avashyak Bhashya written by Jinabhadra mentions it as Botik (Yapaniya). From Historical evidences, Nirgrantha-sangha went in two directions, the south Acela Nirgrantha-sangha (Digambara) the North Sacelakas Nirgrantha-sangha ( Śvētāmbaras), Shivbhuti belonged to Northern Nirgrantha-sangha before starting Northern Acela Nirgrantha-sangha. ^[6][11]

The story says that about 609 years after Mahavira attained nirvana,^[12][13] there was a city Rathavirapur^[14] near present-day Mathura. A layperson named Sivabhuti lived there and worked for King Sinharath. He had earned several accolades for his service to the king.^[9][15] As a result, he turned 'proud' and often stayed out of home late at nights. Once, his wife complained to his mother. To teach him a lesson, his mother asked him to leave and go somewhere else. Wandering, he entered Arya Krishnasuri's^[5] upashray (dwelling). After taking alochna (repentance) from Acharya Krishnasuri, he requested to become a monk. Sivabhuti was then initiated as a monk.^[16]

One day, while wandering as a monk, he arrived at Rathavirapur.^[17] On hearing about his arrival, the king gifted him a shawl (ratna-kambal).^[18] The shawl was a precious possession, but such a thing was totally against the Jain principle (vow) of Aparigraha. His preceptor, Acharya Krishnasuri tried to explain this to him, but to no avail. The acharya tore the shawl and this did not go well with Sivabhuti. He protested by stating that if the shawl was a possession then so were clothes. He adopted nudity immediately. Two monks Kaundinya and Kottavira joined him as disciples^[19] and this was the beginning of the Digambar sect. He preached that Moksha can be attained only through complete non-possession, including clothes.^[20] Śvetāmbaras believe he had heard his preceptor talk about jinkalpa (a way of attaining liberation by giving up all possessions, including clothes). However, he heard him mention that the culture had become extinct after Ganadhar Jambuswami. He, then, based on his limited knowledge of scriptures, rebelliously started imitating tirthankars and preaching that public nudity even with incomplete and insufficient knowledge of the scriptures was permitted in Jainism.^[16] This was in contradiction to the major Śvetāmbara texts like Ācārāṅga Sūtra and Uttaradhyayana Sutra.

According to Professor Dr. Sagarmal Jain an eminent scholar of Jainology and Indology In the second century AD i.e. six hundred and nine years after Mahāvīra's Nirvana there was another event of a division in Nirgrantha-sangha, consequently the north Indian branch of Nirgrantha-sangha ( Śvētāmbaras) got further sub-divided into two groups of Acelaka and Sacelaka. With the influence of tirthankara Parshvanatha descendants, the cloth meant for protection from the cold and the begging bowls meant to be used in exceptional circumstances "became objects of regular use and started becoming indispensable for the monks.^[6]

On the subject of stopping this, increasing tendency for possessions Ārya Krsna and Arya Sivabhuti had disagreement with each other. Arya Kṛṣṇa discarded the Jinakalpa code and emphasized that the cloth and bowl are indispensable objects of a monk's life, while Arya Sivabhuti emphasized the observance of the Jinakalpa code and the renunciation of these objects. According to him Jinakalpa code should not be discarded for the competent ones and the cloth and bowl should be meant only for exceptional circumstances. In fact, the normal path is only Acelakatva.^[6]

The Acela tradition of Arya Sivabhuti in North India was described by Svetambaras as Botika (distorted). But later on this tradition came to be popularly known as the 'Yapaniya' Because of its growth and spread in the region of cows (Gopancal), it became known as Gopya Sangha. In the commentary (Tika) of Satdarśana-Samuccaya Acarya Gunaratna says that the terms Gopya-sangha and Yapaniya-Sangha are synonyms. The special features of Yapaniya-Sangha were (1) like the Svetambara tradition it recognized the Ardhamagadhi Agamic literature like Sūtrakṛtānga, Acārānga, Uttaradhyayana, Daśavaikālika etc., which they got as inheritance it accepted the liberation of Sacelakas (those with clothes), liberation of women, and even those who belonged to other faiths.^[6]

It believed that the mention of clothes bowls in the Agama literature was only in the context of Sadhvis (nuns), and monks only in exceptional circumstances. On other hand, however, it laid emphasis on naked and disallowed clothes and bowls. Yapaniya monks used to live naked and used to take meal only with hands (i.e. did not use begging bowl). ^[6]

According to Paul Dundas Book The Jains^[11] Śvētāmbaras consider Shivbhuti as the founder Digambara sect, The equivalent Digambara story also highlights the supposed in- adequacies of their sectarian rivals' origins, although without singling out any particular individual as a putative founder. In this account, the Śvetāmbaras are portrayed as the descendants of a backsliding section of what was an originally undifferentiated Jain community which remained in the north of India during a famine (the word durbhikṣā used in this context by the sources means literally ‘a time when it is difficult to gain alms' and can imply a state of political anarchy), while the rest of their co-religionists migrated to the south under the leadership of the teacher Bhadrabāhu. The northern monks are portrayed as subsequently out of weakness taking to the heretical practice of wearing clothes^[11].

Neither of these stories, both of which purport to explain how deviant tendencies arose within Jainism, is genuinely ancient, with the Śvētāmbaras account dating from about the fifth century CE, while the oldest literary version of the Digambara story is as late as the tenth century CE. They are in themselves of little historical worth, merely serving as indices of sectarian bitterness, although it should be noted in passing, as the Digambara story of the migration might suggest, that the Śvētāmbaras have had no significant long-term pres-ence in the south of India. The situation as seen from the earliest evidence available is rather more complex.^[11]

An examination of early Śvētāmbaras literature would seem to leave little room for doubt that Mahāvīra and his male followers were naked monks. The Uttarādhyayana points to the fact that nudity distinguished Mahāvīra's monks from those of Pārśva (UttS 23) while the Acārānga describes lack of clothes as being in full conformity with Jain doctrine (ĀS 1.6.2.3). Another passage in the Ācārānga refers to the difficulties experienced by the naked monk and also to the fact that he does not need to beg for and repair clothes (ĀS 1.6.3.1-2).Yet elsewhere in the Ācārānga the monk is advised only to restrict himself in the wearing of clothes through not possessing too many garments and to be either very lightly clad or completely naked during summer as a form of penance (ĀS 1.8.5). Confirmation that there gradually arose options about the wearing of clothes by monks is provided by the Sthānāṁga, an encyclopaedic text important for its delineation of the parameters of Jain teachings in the early common era, which states that it may be permissible for a monk to wear clothes for reasons of embarrassment, the disgust he might cause to others or his inability to endure the afflictions which occur in the course of the monastic life (Sth 171).2 A growing sense of the pervasive influence of decline setting in at the beginning of the common era as the distance from the time of the last fordmaker.grew ever longer no doubt suggested to those ascetics who had chosen to wear robes that there was no need to purge their scriptures of any references to naked monks. Instead, they devised two textual categories of asceticism, ubiquitous in the scriptural commentaries, to allow for the differences in early descriptions of monastic dress: the jinakalpa, the 'way of the conquerors', the radical path of naked- ness and often solitary asceticism which died out soon after Mahāvīra and which the Śivabhūti of Śvetāmbara sectarian polemic mistak- enly tried to revive, and the sthavirakalpa, the 'way of the elders', more suited to a period of decline, which allowed for the wearing of robes by monks and did not stress the deliberate seeking of diffi- culties and physical mortification through nakedness.^[11]

The archaeological and inscriptional evidence suggests that there was a gradual movement among Jain monks towards a differentia- tion based on apparel, or the lack of it, rather than any abrupt doctrinal split. All the earliest fordmaker images from Mathurā are naked and it is not until the fifth century CE that there is found an image of Rṣabha wearing a lower garment, with the practice of images being portrayed as clothed only becoming prevalent among Śvētāmbaras several centuries later.

• Dundas, Paul (2002) [1992]. The Jains (Second ed.). London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-26605-5.