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Jaina Ethics
no chance of salvation. The true life, from the spiritual point of view, begins only at the dawn of right faith.
It is only when a monk is certain of his death that he is allowed to adopt Sallekhana. The following passage from Bhagavatiarādhana clarifies it :
Bhaktapratyakhyāna (samādhimarana) is not proper for him who has many years of saintly life before him, who has no fear of starvation from a great famine, who is not afflicted by an incurable disease, and who is not faced by any sudden cause of death. Whoever desires to put an end to his life, while still able, with his body, to observe the rules of the dharma and of the order properly, falls from the true path.1
When a monk takes sallekhanavrata, the fellow monks and the ācārya should carefully see that the concerned monk is not led to consider the sallekhana as a burden on him. He is to be carefully looked after and should be kept firm on the right path by means of constant inspiration from religious discourses.
The ācārānga gives the following four types of death: 1. Bhaktapratyākhyāna-This means total abstinence from food and drink. The monk lies on a bed of straw and waits for death even without moving his
limbs.2
2. Ingitamarana-The monk lies on a bare piece of ground and abstains from food and drinks although he can move according to the rules of gupti and samiti.3
3. Padopagamana-The monk stands motionless like a tree till death comes.4
4. Sallekhana-This means a planned scheme of fasting and mortification; the maximum period of mortification being twelve years and the minimum six months.
1. Quoted from Samnyasa Dharma, p. 128.
2. Acarängasútra, 1.7.8.7-10.
3. Ibid., 1.7.8.11-18 (pp. 76-77).
4. Ibid., 1.7.8.19-23 (p. 77).
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