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HIS RELIGIOUS LIFE
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The vow of chastity (Maithuna viramana vrata) follows, iv. Maiby which a man promises to be absolutely faithful to his own thuna wife at all times and never to allow any evil thoughts in his maņa own mind about goddesses. The vow may be broken in vrata. five ways : consummating marriage with a young child, or forming a temporary connexion with a widow or other woman whom it is impossible truly to marry; unfaithfulness before marriage; match-making and marriage brokerage; excessive sexual indulgence; and lastly, evil talk. The breaking of this vow carries with it penalties too horrible to put on paper. Many of the enlightened Jaina are beginning to feel very strongly the evils of early marriage; and here again one would venture to suggest to them that their protest cannot be fairly termed an innovation when the abuse of early marriage is expressly forbidden in this vow.
The Jaina have shrewdly realized that the true way of v. Pari. increasing our wealth is by curbing our desires. The fewer graha
virathings we allow ourselves to use, the fewer our desires be- maņa come, and, safe within the circumscribing walls we ourselves vrata. have built round our potential possessions, we find not only peace of mind but also safety from many temptations. Why should we steal when we already have all we desire, or why cheat and defraud in the race for wealth, if we already are as wealthy as we will ever allow ourselves to become? After all, few people forge or gamble to gain money to give in alms. When we remember that the Jaina creed has forced its holders to become a commercial people, we see the special value this vow of limitation, Parigraha viramaņa vrata, might have, if it were really lived up to. Unfortunately it has not been kept sufficiently to prevent the name of Baniyā being considered a synonym for a money-grubber.
The vow may be translated :
I take a vow not to possess more of the following things than I have allowed myself; a certain fixed quantity of houses and fields, of silver and gold, of coins and grain, of two-footed or four-footed
