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gious man you say you are, can you not transcend the form and live in the essence of the teaching?"
Rup had breathed a breath of fresh air into this man's life. He sat very still, reflecting on Rup's words.
"I hope I did not offend you, Sir,” Rup told him gently.
The train was pulling into the station where this man was to get off. Before he stood up, he took both of Rup's hands into his own, looked into his eyes, as if into a mirror, and spoke to him in a subdued tone, “Bless you, child of God. You have given me something. I shall not forget it.” Then he went out of the compartment and on his way.
When Rup became a monk, he read Mahāvir's own words revealing the Jain attitude toward caste. In Chapter XXV of the Uttarādhyāyana Sūtra, Mahāvir tells the story of the monk Jayaghosha who had been a Brahmin before becoming initiated as a Jain monk and who, as such, was now free from caste identity. Jayaghosha was completing a one month's fast and going out for alms when by chance, he approached a house in which a Brahmin, Vijayghosha, was preparing a sacrificial offering. When he saw Jayaghosha, he turned him away, refusing to give him alms and explaining, “This food is meant only for Brahmins who are well versed in the Vedas and well grounded in the sacrificial science. They are the ones who deserve charity because they save themselves and others."
The monk became neither upset nor disappointed. Instead, he calmly stated the qualities of a "true Brahmin," indicating that Jains take the word 'Brahmin' in a different sense, in its essential meaning irrespective of the labels of birth or heredity. Here are Jayaghosha's exact words:
“He who is exempt from attachment, hatred, and fear, and who shines forth like burnished gold purified in fire, him we call a Brahmin.
“He who thoroughly knows living beings, those which move about, those which do not, and does not injure them, him we call a Brahmin.
"He who does not take anything that is not given him, be it small or large, him we call a Brahmin.
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