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forbidden to her.155 Being controlled in speech, no cause for quarrel was expected, but perchance a quarrel took place then it was the duty of the ganinī to pacify her disciples by means of pleasing words.156 Inspite of these rules, it appears that quarrels did take place among the monks and nuns or among the nuns only, and in that case the pravartins or the ācārya was expected to pacify the quarrel. Neither the nuns nor the monks were allowed to give kşāmanā (pardon) from a distance among themselves.157
The body was to be completely neglected and no efforts of decorating it or even giving it an appearance of deliberate or conscious neatness were allowed. The rule was more strict to the nuns than to the monks.
For this very purpose, it seems, that the nuns had to undergo the act of 'loya' (loca) or uprooting the hair. It was incumbent on every nun right from the time of initiation, and we come across many references to this 'pañcamutthiya loya.'158 Besides 'loya', the phrase used to denote this act was 'munde bhavittā.'
Besides this, the nun was not allowed to take bath or wash limbs or powder them or decorate them in any way.159 In cases of illness, however, they were allowed to take medicine, and were expected to wait upon and nurse the younger candidates among themselves.160 No attachment towards others was to be shown and there are instances of nuns who were banished from the gana for fondling the children of others or for devoting much time to the toiletting of the body.161
The fundamental rule of a nun's life was the practice of perfect chastity, and she had to undergo a strict discipline in this matter. Numerous rules are prescribed for this and all the texts practically agree in this respect.
155. Ibid., p. 212b. 156. Gacchācāra, 130. 157. Vav. 7, 8-9.
158. Antg. p. 27, 28; Niryā. p. 52; Nāyā. p. 118; Uttar. XXII, 30; ALTEKAR (Position of Women, pp. 188-91) opines that tonsure of widows in Brahmanism could not have arisen before c. 500 A.D., as niyoga and remarriage were permitted down to that period. He does not trace it even in the Early Smrtis or in the Mahabharata. On epigraphical evidence. he says that round about 900 A.D. only oiling of the hair of widow was stopped. The head was not shaven. After the 9th cent. A.D., the system of tonsure might have started owing to prohibition of niyoga and remarriage, and it might have been general from about 1200 A.D. He traces the practice of the tonsure of Hindu widows to the practice of shaving the head as carried out by the Jaina and Buddhist nuns.
159. Gacchācāra, 114, 122. 160. Vav, 5, 21; Gacchācāra, 119. 161. Niryā. p. 53; Story of Subhadda in Pupphiyão, Bșhatkathākośa, Intro. p. 21.
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