Buddhism died in India, do you know why? it was because Buddha finally allowed woman into his order. He himself reported to have said, " My religion would have lived at least five thousand years, but now it will not live more than five hundred, because I am taking a very great risk. " Just allowing woman into his order was such a risk that Buddha said, " The life of my religion is reduced by four thousand five hundred years - at the most it will last only five hundred years" and it happened exactly that way. For only five hundred Buddhism lived and that life was also not at the climax, not at the optimum. Everyday the life was slowing down, everyday death was coming closer and closer. What happened?
The society. The society has long been male dominated. To allow woman into a religious order was to destroy the old hierarchy, the superiority of man. Even a man like Mahavira a very revolutionary man, is reported to have said that woman cannot enter Moksha directly as woman. First they will have to be born as man and then ......so no woman has entered into the Jaina moksha, into Nirvana directly as a woman. First she has to change her body, take a male shape and form, and then she can enter.
Why should Mahavira say this? Society, the politics of the country the priests and the politicians, they were too male chauvinistic. Some compromise was needed, otherwise they would not allow anything. Mahavira lived naked, but he himself did not allow any woman to go naked because the society was not ready to accept even him in his nudity. By and By people accepted him, reluctantly, grudgingly, but to accept the idea that woman could naked would have been too much. Just to avoid nude woman he had to make a very false statement untrue. As we have to exist in a society, in a particular state, in a particular confused state, in a particular neurotic state. If you live with mad people you have to make a few compromises. If you live with mad people at least you have to pretend that you are also mad.
