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HERITAGE OF LORD MAHAVIRA :
special kinds of food, or of eating at night and from partial fasts and fasts of a whole day or several days, upto fasts of more than a month's duration. There are vows, moreover, by which one undertakes to practise certain ascetical postures, to meditate for a fixed time, to devote a certain time to the regular study of religious works, to the service of co-religionists, and so on. Several forms of austerity are at the same time recommended as strengthening and hardening one's bodily and mental powers. The Ambil Fast, a kind of bread-and-water diet, excluding all milk, fat, sugar, spices etc., for example, and also certain Asanas or ascetic postures indeed enhance these powers, if observed within certain limits.
Of an entirely different character, however, is the austerity called Samlekhanā, or Sallekhanā, by which the individual solemnly resigns all food for the rest of his life. In this he strictly follows the instructions laid down in the Avasyaka Sutra, the whole of the last chapter of which is devoted exclusively to the subject of the Pratyakhyanas.. This form of austerity is resorted to by people who are extremely pious, at the time when they feel death positively approaching.
Thus it is true that under certain specific circumstances Jainism does allow the vow of Self-starvation. But it would be wrong to imagine from this that its ideal is the extinguishing of all personal activity. The truth is just the contrary. Jainism proclaims self-realisation as the aim of individual life. But it is self-realisation which, at the same time, forms the basis of the well-being of all
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
