Book Title: Fasting Unto Death According To Jaina Tradition
Author(s): Colette Caillat
Publisher: Colette Caillat

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________________ 52 COLETTE CAILLAT row, when the night shall have lightened into dawn and the sun shall arise in golden lustre', Khandaga will approach Mahāvira and will pay due homage to him. Mahāvira already knows of the resolution of his disciple: he grants him necessary permission. Khandaga takes leave of the Master. He solemnly takes the five monastic vows (thus he renews his ordination, so to speak), he asks for forgiveness from all those whom he may have wronged or injured. 31 Then, surrounded by accomplished theras, he ascends Mount Vipula (near Rajgir), and looks for a dry slab of stone-like earth, which he inspects. 32 The text continues: he 'spread a bed of · darbha-grass, sat thereupon in a squatting posture with his face to the east, raised to his head the ten fingers of his hands clasped before his forehead with joined palms', and recited the appropriate formulas: the homage 33 to the five categories of the Saints, the Perfect Ones, the Masters, Teachers and Religious; followed by homage to Mahāvira.34 He repeats the five Great Vows, and solemnly renounces the four kinds of food (thus including liquids); he renounces his body, and, observing the uninterrupted fast called samlehaņā, he sits motionless, 'waiting without eagerness for death by wasting away in starvation'. 35 31 sayam eva panca mahavvayāim áruhei attā samane ya samanio ya khamei ..., ib, 425, 4-5. 82 khāmei 2ttä tahärūvehim therehim kaļdihim saddhim Vipulam pavvayam saņiyam 2 durūhei ... pudhavi-sila-vattayam padilehei ..., ib, 5-6. — Concerning pudhavi-silā-vaffa(ya) or patfa(ya), prthivi-silā-pattaka, 'a stone platform of earth', 'a masonry platform', Hoernle, Uvās II, 107 n. 251, ad Uvās 6 $ 164. 38 dabbha-samthārayam samtharai että puratthabhimuhe sampaliyanka-nisanne karayala-pariggahiyam dasa-nahum sirasavattam matthae anjalim kaffu, evam vadāsi 'namo 'tthu ..., ib., 7 foll. - Dabbha-: cp. the ritual in Hopkins, loc. cit., p. 152; but Ayār 1, 'taņa', grass, or straw (infra, n. 65a). 84 'vandāmi ņam Bhagavantam..., Viy 425, 10. 35 Barnett's trsl. puovim pi ... iyānim pi ya ņam samaņassa Bh. M. antie savvum pāņāivāyam paccakkhāmi jāvajjīvāe jāva micchädamsanasallam paccakkhāmi, evam savvam asaņam pāņam khā. så. cauvviham pi āhāram paccakkhāmi jāvajjivãe, jam pi ya imam sariram ... eyam pi nam ... vosirāmi tti kattu samlehaņā-jhüsaņā-jhūsie bhatta-pāņa-padiyāikkhie pāovagae kälam aṇavakankhamâne viharati, 'Previously (... I have for all my life renounced all harm to living beings ...), now also in front of the Samaņa ... I renounce ...', ib, 11-18.

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