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the temple and again makes 'älocanä'. He sleeps very early as no lights are allowed in the monastery.
The scanning of the requisites and the 'alocana' involve the use of the 'sthāpanācārya' i.e. the shells which are placed as substitutes for the 'pañcaparameşthin' (the five dignitories). Now-a-days, the shells are placed in an exquisitely embroidered piece of fine cloth and are often gold-plated. They are tied in silky pieces of clothes and are placed on a wooden tripod.
Even though, most of the time of the monk is to be allotted to study, the sphere of his activities has increased, and he spends more of his time in lecturing to the laity and organising its religious life. Mrs. STEVENSON 252 notes that the Jaina laymen pay the pandits who are employed to teach the monks. The present author, however, found that all the monks with whom he had the opportunity to meet, were such as could read and write Gujarati and Hindi, and were equipped with the knowledge of the basical, if not detailed, information of their tenets.
Death and Funeral Rites:
We have already seen that the texts of the canon fail to give details about the funeral rites of a monk. It is only in the Bhāṣyas253 that we come across the details of disposing of the dead. It is likely that these Bhāṣyas picture contemporary or even earlier, and hence somewhat traditional, practices in this matter.
The following information can be had from these texts.
Choosing a Place of Residence:
The monks who decided to stay at a particular place either for the rainy season or otherwise for one month, took into consideration the possibility of easily obtaining wood and a proper place for the disposal of the dead nearby.
Along with these two fundamental necessities, they had to keep at piece of cloth ready with them to cover the dead, perchance a monk died. What to do if a Monk dies:
If death overtook a monk at night, the rest of the monks kept a vigil around him.
252. Heart of Jainism, p. 231.
253. Brh. kalp. bha. Vol. V, 5500-5557; Vav. bha. 7, 442-446; Avasyaka-c. II, pp. 102-09; Avasyaka-N-Dipika, Vol. II, 95ff. The above account is based mainly on the first two texts.
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