Jain Journal 1982 04

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 42

APRIL, 1982
from the deadly plague then rampant in the city of Agra. He recoils perceptibly from the thought of revealing what he had done and frankly tells us that he will just not speak on the subject. Success in business came to Banarasi late in life, after years of dismal failure. We find him quite garrulous on the subject of his losses, but he quite unexpectedly tightens his lips when it comes to speaking of how he made his gains, hiding behind a quotation from ancient wisdom literature. The dictum he quotes gives a list of nine unutterables concerning oneself, matters such as age, sexual affairs and the like, including one's riches.
Fortunately, Banarasi followed this advice only partially, or there would have been no Ardhakathanaka. He begins with a promise to unveil all, and seems indeed to have felt uncomfortable at having to hold something back. At the end of his story he says: "Few are willing to speak of their misdeeds, even small ones, yet I have hidden but little.' He meant this obviously as an excuse for having concealed certain facts.
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...Banarasi made many friends during an eventful life. He had to spend years in Agra and other towns away from his family repeatedly facing frustrations in business. He learned to depend a great deal on friends both for companionship and partnership in trade. Most of his friends, as could be expected, were men of his clan and community. And as with all of us, he made new friends with a change in interests or pursuits and the vicissitudes of his circumstances, some friends remaining more constant than others. During the final period of his life, when he wrote his autobiography, his closest companions were friends who shared with him certain heterodox religious views. In fact, at this stage of his life he was emerging as the leader of a new religious group called Adhyatma, whose members were rebellious free-thinkers protesting against the tyranny and hollowness of overformalism in their orthodox faith. Banarasi regularly met friends belonging to this group in order to discuss matters of common spiritual interest. He names five friends of this brotherhood as being particularly close to him.
Curiously, Banarasi does not mention them in the Ardhakathānaka, where, indeed, he speaks of his association with Adhyatma quite cursorily, only in passing as it were. But, fortunately, we know something about them from his other celebrated work, the Samayasaranāṭaka.
...Banarasi and his five friends formed the core of the Adhyatma group in Agra. He was at the head of this assemblage which he calls the Adhyatma Saili. The members of this emergent religious body, which was gradually acquiring a considerable following styled themselves as Gnyātās "Those who know'.
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