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The Heritage of the Last Arhat
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had blown down into the grass, were amply sufficient to appease their hunger. The six men symbolize, in the above succession, the six Leśyā or ‘soul-colours', representing types of graded inner purity. It is quite characteristic of the spirit of Jainism that the representative of the white colour, i.e., the type of highest purity, advises to eat the fruits fallen into the grass, but not, as absolute and one sided negation of life would suggest, to sit down in fullest renunciation, and die of hunger.
The postulate of self-preservation within the reasonable limits of ethical decency is clearly and directly pronounced in the Jaina scriptures, which, in critical cases, recommend it even at the cost of renunciation or Samyama:
सव्वत्थ संजमं संजमाओ अप्पाणमेव रक्खिज्जा । मुच्चइ अइवायाओ पुणो विसोही न साविरई ।। संजमहेउ देहो धारिज्जइ सो कओ उ तदभावे । संजमफाइनिमित्तं देहपरिपालना इट्ठा ।।
(Ogha-niryukti, stanzas 47-48.) “Before all, one should guard the rules of renunciation, but even at the cost of renunciation, one should guard one's self. For one can get rid again of the sin of transgression, if one atones for it afterwards (by austerities ), and it is, as a matter of fact, not a case of Avirati ( i.e., the state of not being under any Pratyākhyāna whatsoever, or the state of religious licentiousness ).”
“The body is the instrument of renunciation. How could a man perform renunciation, without the help of his body ? Therefore, it is desirable to preserve one's body in order to increase one's Samyama.”
Thus, even the rules laid down for monks, for these two stanzas refer to monastic conduct, stand under the immediate influence of this principle. The monk, it is true, is supposed to fast and to renounce, to observe absolute chastity, to meditate and to suffer all kinds of inconveniences and hardships; but he has, on the
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