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THE JAINA ASCETIC
proceedings by performing the ordinary daily worship, and then the candidate took off his jewels and his clothes, and giving them away to his relatives, put on a sadhu's dress.
An ascetic can only retain five garments (three upper and two lower ones), the colours of which vary according to his sect, a Svetambarawearing yellow, or white with yellow over it, and a Sthanakavāsī white. A Digambara ascetic, however, may wear no clothing at all, and such are accordingly to be found only in jungles or desert places outside British states. In Bhopal my informant met a man claiming to be a Digambara sadhu, but because he wore a loin-cloth, the laymen of his community refused to recognize him as such, and drove him away.
The next step in the initiation is the removal of the hair. A peculiarity of the Jaina cult is that they insist on ascetics tearing the hair out by the roots at least once a year; but when at his initiation a man's hair is removed for the first time, the merciful method of shaving is resorted to, and only a few hairs are left to be pulled out; these are plucked off behind a curtain in private. After this a mixture called Vasakşepa is applied to the man's head, and this is the crucial point in the initiation, for until this is applied he is not a sadhu. Whilst the mixture is being put on, a sadhu whispers a sacred mantra in his ear. The newly made sadhu then performs the morning worship, and devout laymen feast the ascetics who are present.
If the ascetic were a Digambara, he would take an entirely new name; if a Svetambara, he might either change his name or add a new one to his old one; but a Sthanakavāsi retains his original name intact.
He is now to be a homeless wanderer, possessing nothing and dependent for his very subsistence on the alms of the charitable. He may possess no metal of any sort even a needle, if borrowed, must be returned at sunset, and his spectacles, if he wear them, should be framed in wood. A man was once pointed out to the writer at Pälitāņā as a sadhu
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