Religious Problem in India

Author(s): Annie Besant
Publisher: Theosophist Office Adyar

Page 65

JAINISM
57
to an extraordinary extent, just like the fasting of the great ascetics of the Hindū. There are both men and women asceties among the sect known as the Srețāmbarās; among the Digambaras there are no female ascetics and their views of women are perhaps not on the whole very complimentary. Among the Svetāmbarās, however, there are female ascetics as well as male, under the same strict inles of begging, of renouncing of property; but one very wise rule is that the ascetic must not renounce things without which progress camot be made. Therefore he must not renounce the body; he must beg food enough to support it, because only in the human body can he gain liberation. He must not renounce the Guru, because without the teaching of the Gurn he cannot tread the narrow razor path ; nor discipline, for if he renounce that, progress would be impossible; nor the study of the Sūtras, for that also is needed for his evolution ; but outside these four things--the body, the Guru, discipline, study—there must be nothing of which he can say: "it is mine”. Says a teacher: “He shoull not speak umasked, and asked he should not tell a lie; he should not give way to his anger, and should bear with indifference pleasant and unpleasant occurrences. Subdne voir self, for the self is difficult to subdue; if your self is subdued, rou will be happy in this world and in the next." *
The female ascetics, living mder the same strict rule of conduct, have one duty which it seems to me is of the very wisest provision; it is the cluty of
* l'ttaraih yayana, i. 14, 15.