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Dr. Charlotte Krause : Her Life & Literature
other hand, to follow special prescriptions as to how to accept, within narrow limits, pure food and other requisites offered, how to walk and how to sleep, how to sit and how to speak, how to serve fellow-ascetics, and how to receive their service, how to preach and how to dispute, how to work and how to move in the world as it is, with its saints and its criminals, its laymen and laywomen, its Hindus and Bauddhas, its scholars and peasants, and its kings and beggars.
In short, he is taught how to regulate his whole bodily and mental activity in such a way as to be in constant and undisturbed harmony with all that lives around him, under all conditions given. He is shown the way how to secure the optimum of his own personal happiness in such a manner as to contribute, even thereby, to the welfare of the world. Or he is taught how to help making the world more perfect by increasing his own perfection.
Thus, the very secret of Jainism is contained in the three important words : Ahiṁsā or Non-injury, Saṁyama or Renunciation and Tapa or Austerity : words which the famous first stanza of the Daśavaikālika Sūtra so beautifully groups together as the essence of Dharma, i.e., Religion :
धम्मो मंगलमुक्किटुं अहिंसा संजमो तवो ।
देवाऽवि तं नमस्संति जस्स धम्मे सया मणो ।।
“Religion is the highest of all blessings : it comprises Ahimsā, Samyama and Tapa. Even the gods bow down to him whose mind is always centered in religion.”
Then the Sūtra continues with the following classical verses, which are, like the above one, amongst the words to be daily recited by monks :
जहा दुम्मस्स पुप्फेसु भमरो आवियइ रसम् । ण य पुप्फ किलामेइ सो अ पीणेइ अप्पयम् ॥ एमए समणा मुत्ता जे लोए संति साहुणो । विहंगमा व पुप्फेसु दाणभत्तेसणारया ।।
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