________________
NIRJARĀ
51
transgressed by ordering things from beyond, or by tran
sacting business outside the limits. (xi) The next vow is a severer form of the ninth. Prolonged medi
tation coupled with fasting is its characteristic. The layman should try to spend a whole day, four times a month, in holy meditation, and should observe fasting on those
days. (xii) Sharing one's food with some holy monk, or a pious śrāvaka
(householder), and giving him presents of books and other
useful articles, at least once a year. In addition to these twelve, there is another vow which a man on the point of death is expected to take. Its object is to be inferred from the following formula in which it is generally worded:
I vow to abstain from the four kinds of eatables, that is, from substantial things, e.g., bread, dal (pulses) etc., from the dainty tit-bits--cakes, puddings, creams and the like—from semi-liquids, such as gruel and porridge, and from liquids, e.g., soups and sherbets, as long as I live."
Terrible and cruel as this last vow may appear to the uninitiated, it is the severest form of austerity, and, therefore, leads to the greatest prosperity in the next life. There is no idea of suicide involved in the operation of this vow, since it is only taken when the last remaining hope of life is given up. At that supreme moment of life, when fate may be said to be trembling in the balance, the successful carrying out of a terrible resolve like this is an ample guarantee of future happiness, for the exertion of will to adhere to its resolve, in the trying moments of a departing life, goes a long way to remove its negativity, and thereby enables the soul to attain to the region of heavens where pain and misery are the least known.
We now come to the eleven pratimas which may be described as follows:(i) The worship of the true deva (God, i.e., tirtham kara), guru
(preceptor) and fāstra (Scripture), and the avoidance of gambling, meat, wine, adultery, hunting, thieving and falsehood.
6762
