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108
S. N. Ghosal
After courting the life of a lay disciple Ananda raised upon himself the walls of multifarious restrictions. He avoided the gross violence to life, speaking lies, stealing, contact with many women being contented with his wife and other kinds of coarse sexsual pleasures. He then gave up luxuries in all matter and imposed upon himself the burden of a rigorous life. He set a limit to his possessions. He deposited four crores as reserved money, employed four crores for expansion by way of trade and industry. He kept only four stables of cows each stable containing ten thousand cows. He had in his possession land, which was fit to be cultivated by five hundred ploughs merely. He retained only five hundred carts for business purposes and five hundred for personal conveyance. He preserved only eight boats.
Such an attitude of restriction was notable also in the consumption of articles needed for the daily use. He made use of only a single red towel, one juicy stick for tooth-cleaning, one variety of oil for rubbing, one kind of sweet-scented powder, eight pitchers of water for bathing, one pair of silk cloths, one kind of aloes, sapbron, sandal paste and others. He displayed the same attitude of rigorism in the use of other articles too. He liked only the white lotus or the jasmine flower, one pair of ear-rings bearing the inscription of his name, one kind of incense etc. In the matter of food and drink he showed the identical restrcition. He took one kind of drink a gruel of pulse, one kind of boiled rice prepared with ghee, one kind of soup prepared from mug or māsa pulse, one kind of clarified butter, one kind of vegetables, one sweet drink, one kind of drinking water and one kind of mouth-perfumes. He avoided the employment of energy to matters, which was destined to be fruitless (anathādanda) and non-productive in the future.
Enthused as he was with a spirit of religious fervour and devotion he meticulously avoided all the different kinds of aticāras. He avoided the offences against the law of the right faith-sammattassa aiyārā, those offences against the vow of desisting from violence to life, from uttering ljes, from stealing and also those offences against the provision of being restricted to one wife. He carefully avoided also the offences against the law of making restriction of his possessions. He strictly complied with the dictates of the śāstras and was very cautious in his conduct and the mode of observance of the daily life. He avoided thus the offences against the vow of desisting from fruitless endeavour (70&G THu), the vow of retaining inward Reace (सामाइयस्स अइयाग), of being within a restricted territory (देसावगासियस्स 27599121) and finally the vow of perpetrating faultlessly the religious fastthe taglaan
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