Book Title: Atonements In Ancient Ritual Of Jaina Monks
Author(s): Collete Caillat
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

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Page 129
________________ 113 ācārya, a religious anya-taraka happens to deserve a penance. The penance will be deferred (niksiptam kriyate) and he will be charged with the service. Once this is finished, he will undertake his atonement. Now, if he commits a new offence while he is "serving", it is cancelled (jhosyate) (T III, 8 6); if, on the contrary, the fault is committed, not during the vaiyavrtya, but during the atonement, the total amount of this last is increased (cf. ibid, 10 b-11 a, the same measure in favour of the para-tara). The Kappa and Vavahāra-sutta allow us to imagine, more or less, what these benefits - sometimes spiritual but generally material (cf. bhakt adibhir upastambhaḥ, Uvav gl., s. v. v.) were. They naturally vary according to the abilities of the "servant” and the needs of those whom he serves. The Vav defines ten kinds of service (10, 35): to the superior, to the preceptor, to the elder, to the pupil, to a sickman, to a penitent, to a religious, to the spiritual family, to the company and to the community (cf. Uttar 30, 33). Except in cases of circumstances beyond their control, ordinary monks and nups “of the same commensality” (sambhoiya) do not serve each other (Vav 5, 20). It will be seen that, in the course of certain atonements, the monk of necessity benefits from the help of particularly experienced companions. Perhaps the removal of the corpse of a brother in religion would be placed among the vaiyāvstyas rendered to the company or to the religious community (K 4, 24). Certain individual services are related in some detail. The service which the “isolated" religious (parihāriya) owes, on occasions, to the teacher is defined in K 4, 26: helping him to rise, to commence his journey, to sit down, to lie down, to remove or clean up his various excretions. . From Vay 1, 22 ff., it emerges that the religious observing the atonement called parihara sometimes left his company to place himself at the disposal of an Elder outside it; and from Vav 2, 29 f. (and Bh ?), it appears that he occasionally went begging alms in the Elder's place (cf. K 5, 53). The service rendered to a sick person, or to a penitent who offers no resistance to the mortification undertaken, is of the same sort, despite slight variations. One helps the person who is sick at the end of a fast (kşapana): “ < he is helped to > examine < his belongings >,< one obtains for him > drink, < food, medecine > , < one removes and supplies > three pots for excrement : padilehana samtharae pāṇaga taha mattaga-tigam ca (Vav Bh 1, 112 b) :: . 15

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