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Some Noteworthy Features...
relative in the pre-monastic career constitute the strongest link between one and the regular society; as such they are most likely to tempt one back to the regular scciety and so all to be avoided at all cost. Under such conditions it was difficult – if not impossible - for any community of monks to forge special links with any community of householders; (It was only in the course of social evolution that links of this nature were forged and it was then that many - if not the most of the fundamental monastic rules of these olden times turned into a mere formality.)
2. Extremely Hard Ascetic Life
If a monk was to turn proof against the dangers and temptations emanating from the regular society it was necessary for him to steel him. self in the fire of severe asceticism. For only then could be reduce to the minimum bis dependence on the regular society. Yet the compulsion was that whatever be his requirements--in connections with food, clothing, shelter or the like--a monk was to produce them by way of begging from the regular society, the ideal being that he was not to earn them in return for performing some secular job. The net result was a monk would live in the midst of regular society and leading a life of extreme hardship. His food, clothing and shelter would be of the coarsest sort, medicine he would avoid: additionally, he would often impose on himself a pedance in the form of fasting, torturous body exertion or the like,
3. Arambha and Parigrala : the worst sins
That Parigrala or attachment for things worldly should in the eyes of ao ascetic, be one of the worst sios is easy to understand. The noteworthy thing is that our texts connect parigraha with arambha -- meaning violence-- and treat the two as the most fundamental couple of sins. Viewed thus parigrala comprehends those sins which involve a positive attitude towards their respective objects, arambha those which involve a negative attitude towards their respective objects something like raga and dveşa of the later Indian theoreticians. Now it was noted that parigraha seems to be no act of doing evil; nay, it rather seems to be an act of doing good to whosoever happens to be the object of one's parigraha. It was therefore laid bare that all attitude of parigraha towards one must involve-directly or otherwise-an attitude of arambha towards another; one might even say that all attitude of arambha is rooted-directly or otherwise in some attitude of parigraha. Thus the attitude of arambha turns out to be the imm. ediate cause of all sipful activity, the attitude of parigraha its proximate cause.
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