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Acaranga II
57
that under such conditions good food in adequate quantity might become available without any special endeavour on the part of the piosk, For the same fear it was laid down that a monk was not to specially visit for alms the houses of his former relatives and acquaintances (566, 617). Similarly, repeated prohibitions call upon the monk not to participate in common feasts - where he might doubtlessly receive dejicious food and drink but at the cost of spiritual disequilibrium (546-54). Then the monk was asked not to enter for alms a house where others were already seeking alms; the fear was that the donor might override the claim of those early entrants in favour of our monk (573-74). Obvious is the import of the injunction which asks the monk not to select out for himself delicious things out of the food that he has received on behalf of several monks (575)-por so pick out for himself delicious things out of the food that he is jointly taking with several monks (576). Particulary noteworthy is the rule that a monk is not to receive as alms food that is prepared specially for him - for him personally or for the monks in general (533-36, samuddeśa part); an associated rule is that the monk is not to approach for food the person who has already provided him shelter (537 Puruşāntaraksta-bahyani. rhrla part). in this as in the earlier case the likelihood being that the monk should get good fooi witbout inuch endeavour. One rule lays down that the high royal officials are not to be approached for food (560); the fear must have been that royal patronage facilitates alms-collection in the domain concerned. The spirit of self-denial lying at the back of all these injunctions and prohibitions is unmistakable,
After food shelter was the next most important requirement of a monk and so chapter 1, sectio: 2 takes up the question of shelter. In this section so many rules are repeated from the earlier in a rather mechanical fashion and they need not detain us. The new point to emerge is that the monk is asked not to accept a shelter where he might be forced to alone with the family-members of the host; its import is almost obvious but the noteworihy thing is that it has been worked out in great detaiis (662-65, 685-90).
Two further reqirements of a monk have received attention in Ācārän. ga II. Thus its chapter 1, section 5 takes up the problem of procuring clothes, its chapter 1, section 6 the problem of procuring bow). Here too so many rules have been repeated from section 1 in rather mechanical fashion. The new point to emerge is that neither the clothes of a monk nor his bowl should be luxurious (for clothes 808, for bowl 845)(chapter 1, seciion 7 takes up what it calls the problem of procuring avagraha. But avagraha only means 'domain of ownership'--so that for a monk to procure
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