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to cause them to make progress in the realms of knowledge and faith, where his competence was unequalled.
Thus it is that the parihariya-even though classified with the religious "who have left the company"-cnjoys, by reason of his very status, the material and moral support of his confreres, who are chosen from among the best qualified. The duration of his penance is limited, no matter what the gravity of his initial offence and of those committed between his confession and the end of his atonement. Various dispensations temper the harshness of his lot; it seems that very often the Elder authorises him to continue his studies in the company of his fellow-disciples, and that A restrictions on food, though more stringent, are also more or less lifted
when circumstances require.
15.
As can be seen, the severity of the principles upon which the parihara is based is, in practice, tempered in various ways.
5:5
1.
However these indulgences, which are contained in the sutta, seem to have been insufficient to make isolation beneficial for all religious without 193 exception. According to the commentaries, it was imposed exclusively on those who had the status of an adept, and then only to the extent that they had the requisite strength and steadfastness.
But were there any uncertainties ? It seems to have been sometimes admitted that, at least in effect, the immature religious could be subjected to some parihara (cf. Vav Ț III 49 b, recapitulated in the table supra 114).
No doubt the commentaries took little interest in these waverings, because the parihara proper, had no longer any existence or any interest except theoretical. Other atonements had been substituted for it...
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Its replacement by the "radical <suppression>" of religious seniority, which is often recommended, perhaps raised difficulties of principle, since the mula was a heavier penance objectively speaking than the parihara. The doctors thus invented the suddha parihara which they define first of all in terms of fasts, and by the absence of any excommunication. It seems that it was not much different from the tava, tapas, which is the atonement practised at the time of the Jiyakappa.
9,
In one form or another, the observances concerning food, have constantly played a preponderant role in the sixth atonement.
The importance so clearly accorded them is in no way typical of the Jainas, as we have seen. Considered separately, the beliefs and principles upon which the isolation is founded were no more characteristic, This is 221
