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THE MESSAGE OF JAINISM :
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word or action. The Five Great Vows thus ensure, indeed, the maximum degree of faultlessness which can be attained in this world.
And this exalted pitch can only be attained by persons of the highest qualities, who do not care to keep up any private attachment whatsoever. Thus a genuine Jaina monk, even one of the twentieth century, will never use any vehicle, nor shoes, nor keep money, nor touch a woman, nor kindle and warm before a fire, nor use unboiled water. Neither will he take any food containing a trace of life, nor accept such eatables as have been expressly prepared for him. He will not touch a green plant for fear lest its delicate body might suffer pain from the rough contact. And he will not keep any belongings, except his beggingbowl, his stick and the scanty clothes covering his body These few things, at any rate, cannot well be called 'property in the sense of the Scriptures; for, in this case, they lack the main quality which marks all property--the attachment of of the owner. And there is even a small group of Jaina monks who renounce these few articles too, walking about unclad and using their hands as their eating vessels. But there are only a few of them in the whole of India, the Dig-Ambara or Sky-clad monks, as they are called, whereas the other branch, the Syetambara or White-clad monks come to several hundreds.
The extent of the usual Pratyakhyanas, or the sacred religious vows, earmarked for laymen, on the other hand, is covered by a group of fixed vows called the Twelve Laymen Vows. These can be taken in various grades of strictness
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com