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Gofalaka - Your monks do not stay in garde-houses or charitable guest house because they do not want to come into contact with scholars and learned monks. They are afraid that the latter may ask them questions about which they may not be able to provide an answer.
Monk Ardraka - Bhagavan Mahavira does not do any - thing unless necessary, nor does he act like a fool without calculation. He does not preach out of fear for the governmental power even; then, pray, what else is he afraid of ? Sometimes he gives reply to questions and sometimes he does not give a reply. He preaches for his own perfection, as also for the liberation of the Aryans. This omniscient personality preaches either by going or without going to competent listners. But the non-Aryans have no faith; so the Bhagavän does not go to them.
Gogālaka - Your Ma hävira is a profit-seeking merchant who like his brothers-in-profession (i. e., other merchants) establishes contact with other merchants for buying and selling wares.
Monk Ardraka -- Mahāvira, you should know, acquires no new karma; he destroys the old ones. I agree with you that he desires the attainment of liberation, and in this sense alone he is profit-seeking. But he is unlike other merchants who indulge in killing, falsehood, sex behaviour and many other sinfil deeds, and what do they earn there - from? - repeated transmigration in four forms of exist. ence. The prof it earned by Bhagavan Mahā vira has a beginning but no end. He is fully abstained from killing, he is always ready to help others on the spiritual path and he himself is fixed in piety. You should not compare him with other merchants who act contrary to their larger spiritual interest. In doing so, you expose your own ignorance of him.
MONK ĀRDRAKA & A BUDDHIST BHIKSU:
Bhiksu -If someone cooks a lump of oil-cake consi. dering it to be a human being, or cooks a gourd by considering it to be a boy, then, in my view, he incurs the sin of killing a man or a boy. If, on the other hand, someone pierces and cooks a man or a boy by considering them to