Facts and Figures about Jain Shwetambar Terapanthi Diksha

Author(s): Jain Shwetambar Terapanthi Sabha
Publisher: Jain Shwetambar Terapanthi Sabha

Page 19

( 16 ) 11. The observations made by Dr. Hermann Jacobi of Bonn University ( Germany ), a great scholar who has made special study of Jain Sastras, are published in the Book on Jainism by Dr. Glasenopp. Dr. Hermann Jacobi had personally seen the initiation of a Sadhu and a Sadhwi of our sect and his remarks testify to the fact that initiation in our Community is a public ceremony and also to the strictness observed here.
"Both persons to be initiated were a married couple, not pupils or novices; the scene took place in front of a Dharamasala: in front of which was an open public place, steps of approximate human height led to the entrance of the Dharamsala ; on both sides of the steps was a terrace; on the one to the right sat the Yatis : on the one to the left, the Nuns.
Thereafter, the pair beautifully clothed were brought in. She stood quite covered alongside the Nuns, he on level earth in front of Acharyya. A prodakhina ( circumvolution ) was out of the question by the nature of the place. The older