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The Unknown Pilgrims
- We would like to emerge from this obscurity, know our own history better and recover in our own day the place which Mahāvira assigned to the first sādhvis.57
57 This remark has often been made to me in the course of friendly conversations with the sādhvis. Their contribution to this part of the study was precisely that of making me aware of their own very limited knowledge of the subject so soon as one comes to our own era. For this reason there is encouragement from their side to discover the traces of sadhvis of different epochs and regions. It should also be said that even among those present-day sādhvis who are following courses of higher studies, Scripture is the subject of study par excellence for ascetics, along with study of the doctrine and of philosophy. Literary or historical studies are not a priori forbidden, if they are undertaken for a spiritual purpose, but the itinerant life does not lead itself to serious study of history, epigraphy, archaeology and ancient manuscripts, for one would need to be in a position to move quickly from one place to another to consult relevant documents or, on the contrary, to stay in one place for long periods.
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