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INTRODUCTION TO JAINISM
new universe in which my soul will be pervaded by regret, and the desire to help will yet be cultivated?
The path of the Jains, and of the monks in particular, is the path of utter detachment. Even detachment from the stability of a regulated life; because, though the monks may stay in the same location for months, this could be different an hour from now. Without any indication, announcement or consultation the guru may stand up and start walking. Immediately every monk takes his own peacock brush and water carrier and follows him. Naked like Adam before Eve they walk for tens or hundreds of kilometers through fields, villages and cities, over mountains and through valleys. Maybe they will not return to the same place for months or years, or perhaps never. Throughout India there are temples and monasteries within walking distance of each other where they can spend the night. They stop walking one hour before sunset. They need nothing but a floor of earth or stone to lie down on. The monks do not know how long the walk will continue, where they will reside or whether perhaps their feet will burn on modern asphalt or bleed through splinters of glass.
The road of death
After bidding farewell to the naked ascetics we visited the sacred mountain named Muktagiri. We arrived in the early evening and the spectacle was beautiful. The low sun threw most of the green fields into the shadow, but the peaks and summits, studded everywhere with large and small temples on which the reddish sun was shining, stood out against the immaculate azure sky. This mountain is a very sacred place for the Jains. Advanced ascetics go finally to this place to leave their physical bodies, ideally for the last time, and enter siddhaloka – the universe of those who have accomplished the path. Few outsiders know where to find this mountain.
One peculiarity of this mountain is that somewhere on it is a small shrine, and in it an icon of the last-but-one
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