Unknown Pilgrims

SR No.: 007014
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: N Shanta
Publisher: Sri Satguru Publications Delhi
Publication Year: 1997
Total Pages: 820
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 19 MB

Page 76

56
The Unknown Pilgrims
Furthermore. . . the Apophthegms of the "Mothers" were included in the collections of Apophthegms of the Fathers, and not at the tail-end as an appendix that one might suspcct had been added at a later date, but in alphabetical order. If these women Elders are fewer in number(as in our litanies of the saints), the fact is that the question of numbers has here little importance; what counts is the fact of their inclusion which is of doctrinal significance, and is founded on a principle; their small number is merely of historical and sociological significance.48
3. Jaina women ascetics
Had our only consideration been chronological order, we should have introduced the Jaina ascetics after the Greek philosophies of the centuries just preceding our era. However, our endeavour at this point is to discover what term in a western language, of those used to describe the spiritual phenomenon that is called monasticism, fits best the function and goal of those members of the Jaina community who are consecrated to a wholly spiritual quest. Of these the word 'ascctic' is certainly the most apt; Greck in origin, it has been adopted by Christianity. The other religious traditions express themselves in their own language and every other word borrowed from a western language is a translation, of more accuracy or less, of the original. Therefore, it was necessary first to give a brief account of asceticism as it is found in the Greek philosophies, and then of the origin of Christian asceticism and monasticism. In this next section we shall take note briefly of the different terms applied to Jaina women ascetics; as for Jaina asceticism in general, that is the over-all subject of this study and particularly of Part II.
48 Ibid., p. 271; cf. also "Une hymne nestorienne sur les saintes femmes", Frey, 1966; the author in his foreward to this hymn makes this very pertinent remark: "The present study, which intends to present a list - basically a simple enumeration - of holy women figuring in Syriac literature and liturgy, would like to modify a certain low estimation of womanhood presented in oriental monastic writings, where she is regarded above all as enemy number one of the monk."