Mahavira and his Teaching

Author(s): C C Shah, Rishabhdas Ranka, Dalsukh Malvania
Publisher: Bhagwan Mahavir 2500th Nirvan Mahotsava Samiti

Page 272

ACCOUNTS OF THE JAINAS TAKEN ...
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any human voice whatever : for this reason when they are at meals they shut themselves within their homes and cause men stationed at their doors to beat hard on brass bowls so that no other noise may be audible. The men of this caste use neither razors nor scissors to cut their hair and beard but pull it out with their fingers. If a man groans or weeps in doing this he is not received into this caste but if he betrays no sign of pain he is accepted."
An almost identical passage is to be found in an account of India by the Italian adventurer Manucci. Clearly the notion of being admitted or accepted rules out the idea of a caste. Some religious group must be intended and the tearing out of the hair suggests a Jaina sect. The English translator of Manucci thought that for Nostiguer should be read Nastika; and even Zachariae accepted this view though he did not give the term its usual meaning, assuming a mistake in usage.
However, another version of the same passage, extant in a letter written in 1709 by a French Jesuit Pierre Martin?, replaces Nostiguer by Nagastagher. This spelling would rule out completely any connection with Nastika; and Nostiguer might then be interpreted as an unattested synonym for Digambara of the form *Nāka-vastrika, to which has been appended a Dravidian animate plural termination.
Another group of Digambaras is discernible in the description given by the Capucin Vincenzo Maria of a sect he encountered near Cannanorez: “There are certain priests called Gurugelar, dedicated to the cult of a god called Basti, who has the form of a man, naked and shaven all over, with only a bunch of peacock's feathers before his loins and a copper vessel, like those used by Indians for drinking water, in his hand. To 1. Storia do Mogor trans. W. Irvine (Indian Text Series) 1907-8 Vol. III
p. 44
Given in J. Bertrand's Mission de Madure IV. p. 193 3. op. cit. Lib. III Cap. 21, p. 319 M.M.-34