Page Text
________________
THE JAINA ASCETIC
proceedings by performing the ordinary daily worship, and then the candidate took off his jewels and his clothes, and giving them away to his relatives, put on a sadhu's dress.
An ascetic can only retain five garments (three upper and two lower ones), the colours of which vary according to his sect, a Svetambarawearing yellow, or white with yellow over it, and a Sthanakavāsī white. A Digambara ascetic, however, may wear no clothing at all, and such are accordingly to be found only in jungles or desert places outside British states. In Bhopal my informant met a man claiming to be a Digambara sadhu, but because he wore a loin-cloth, the laymen of his community refused to recognize him as such, and drove him away.
The next step in the initiation is the removal of the hair. A peculiarity of the Jaina cult is that they insist on ascetics tearing the hair out by the roots at least once a year; but when at his initiation a man's hair is removed for the first time, the merciful method of shaving is resorted to, and only a few hairs are left to be pulled out; these are plucked off behind a curtain in private. After this a mixture called Vasakşepa is applied to the man's head, and this is the crucial point in the initiation, for until this is applied he is not a sadhu. Whilst the mixture is being put on, a sadhu whispers a sacred mantra in his ear. The newly made sadhu then performs the morning worship, and devout laymen feast the ascetics who are present.
If the ascetic were a Digambara, he would take an entirely new name; if a Svetambara, he might either change his name or add a new one to his old one; but a Sthanakavāsi retains his original name intact.
He is now to be a homeless wanderer, possessing nothing and dependent for his very subsistence on the alms of the charitable. He may possess no metal of any sort even a needle, if borrowed, must be returned at sunset, and his spectacles, if he wear them, should be framed in wood. A man was once pointed out to the writer at Pälitāņā as a sadhu
226
| SR No. | 011099 |
| Book Title | Heart of Jainism |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Mrs Sinclair Stevenson |
| Publisher | Mrs Sinclair Stevenson |
| Publication Year | 1915 |
| Total Pages | 365 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 29 MB |