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256
S. B. DEO
ing to get such a person, he was advised to live with a person of auspicious turn of mind but having no women with him. If such a fellow had women, then the monk stayed separately in an outhouse. As a last resort, he was to go to an empty house.234. He avoided the company of nuns and persons of loose moral behaviour.235
How to Leave the Lodge ?
Having got an ideal lodge the monks were asked to seek permission of and bid farewell to the owner of the house before they left the place. If the monks failed to do so, then it was feared that the householder might lose faith in them, or might take the monks to be devoid of manners and proper etiquettes, or might not lend them his lodging again. If by chance robbers attacked the place which the monks had left without the knowledge of the owner, then there was every possibility that the latter might suspect the monks to be in league with the robbers. In order, therefore, to save themselves from these suspicions and to acknowledge with gratitude the help given to them by the householder, the monks had to take their leave of the householder.
Two precautions were taken by the monks at the time of asking permission to go. They were not do so by taking up all their requisites to avoid lamentations of the householder's wife (sijjātarī) or the doubts creeping up into the mind of the householder due to the monks' sudden decision to go. Seeing the householder crying, people were likely to suspect the relations between the monks and the householder, and thus condemn the former on that account.
The monks never disclosed the exact day of their departure as that was likely to make the members of the family of the householder give up all of their everyday duties on that day and indulge in the preparation of special food for the departing monks.
Right from the day an advance party was sent by the ācārya for searching out the next proper stop, the ācārya lessened his contact with the houseowner. He recited the following verses in order to let the householder know that his party intended to leave the place soon :
“Sugarcanes have grown up, the gourds are plump, the bulls have gained strength, and the villages are free from mud.
“The roads contain less water and the earth is dried up. The proper time for a wandering life has come for monks.
234. Ibid., 105.
235. Ibid., 108-110; for the method to deal with such a person in case a monk happened to stay with him: Comm. p. 58ab.
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