________________ 66 COLETTE CAILLAT Rice, the first editor of the epigraphs, remarks that it is difficult to ascertain whether this practice is still in use. In Mysore, he writes, it is admitted that some people resort to it when ill or very near death.93 Nowadays, it is a fact that some monks or nuns do submit to fasting unto death. In Northern India, such a religious suicide was witnessed by M. and Mme. Louis Renou, in Rajasthan, in the 1940s.94 In Southern India, the existence of this ceremonial is attested.95 With emotion, Rice, in his publications, evokes the last days of these dying devotees in Sravana Belgola, seated on the burning Candragiri rock, with no shade, under a fiery sun:86 valiant, strong-willed believers, who endeavoured to determine, and control, their lives unto the end. * IA II, p. 323. Cf., also, by Buhler, Uber die indische Secte der Jaina, n. 10 p. 36. 94 L. Renou, 'Une secte religieuse dans l'Inde contemporaine', Etudes, 1951, p. 343-351; quoted by J. Filliozat, 'L'abandon de la vie', p. 72 n. 3. Cf., also, the cases quoted by Deo, History of Jaina Monachism, p. 420 and n. 217, p. 562 n. 433 (of a Jaina nun in Poona, in 1945; of Sri Santisagara Maharaj, a digambara, in 1955). 95 Personal information (Dr. A. N. Upadhye, 1972). 96 IA II, 322.
