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Verse 122
Sallekhanā, unlike a custom, is a pious vow, like non-injury and non-stealing, which every individual, young and old, male and female, looks forward to observing when the appropriate time comes. Even a young individual can say with pride and determination that he or she looks forward to observing sallekhanā at the time of death. And the elderly wishes and prays that at the time of death he or she should have the opportunity to observe the vow of sallekhanā. Could a married woman ever wish and pray to have the opportunity to observe the practice of satī? Sallekhanā is a reasoned, scientific way of facing death, an inescapable truth of life, and is applicable to and implementable by the whole of humanity.
Acārya Pūjyapāda’s Samādhisataka:
नष्टे वस्त्रे यथाऽत्मानं न नष्टं मन्यते तथा । नष्टे स्वदेहेऽप्यात्मानं न नष्टं मन्यते बुधः ॥ ६५ ॥ As one does not believe himself to have been destroyed when his clothes are destroyed, similarly the awakened man does not consider himself to be dead when his body dies away.
While the ignorant man is terrorized at the approach of death which entails separation of his soul from its perishable tenement, the knowledgeable man embraces death with equanimity knowing well that his animate soul is entirely distinct from its inanimate encasement. Devotees, men and women, of Lord Jina, in the prime of their lives, and with all comforts and riches of the world on hand, recite hymns like the one given below* that reflect their most cherished dream:
तेरी छत्रच्छाया भगवन् ! मेरे शिर पर हो । मेरा अन्तिम मरण समाधि, तेरे दर पर हो ॥
* “Samādhi Bhakti” composed by Ācārya 108 Vibhavasāgar Munirāja
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