Sannyasa Dharma

Author(s): Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: Champat Rai Jain

Page 56

SANNYASA DHARMA
involve him in the commission of himsa, in violation of his first great vow (not to injure any living being).
NUDITY,-The saint must observe complete nudity, and discard even the loin-strip which is allowed to be worn in the highest stage of the householder's path. For nudity is the true mark of saint-ship, As said in the Householder's Dharma :
"Those who find fault with the Jaina saints for their nudity cannot be said to realise the full import of the all absorbing contemplation of the Self necessary for the destruction of the karinic bonds. It is no use denying the fact that karmas cannot be destroyed so long as attention is not completely withdrawn from the physical body and the world of the senses, and directed inwardly, without wavering or hesitancy, to the atman (sotil) itself. But how this be accomplished if the mind is worried over the ways and means of procuring even a langoti (a narrow strip of cloth worn over the private parts)? It would be disastrous if a misplaced sense of decency were allowed to mar the progress of the soul, condemning it to continually undergo rebirths in different conditions of life, the best of which can hardly be said to afford any real moments of joy. The Jaina saint, whose vow of chastity is of the most rigid and unbending type, goes about naked, not because he wishes to seduce any one from the path of virtue, but because nirvana cannot possibly be attained without the renun ciation of the very last article of apparel and worldly goods."
Nudity was certainly the mark of saint-ship in the ages gone by. In the Bible we read :—
"And he stripped off his clothes also, and prophesied before Samuel in like manner, and lay down naked all that day and all that night. Wherefore they said, Is Saul also among the prophets?"-(Samuel xix. 24).
"At the same time spake the Lord, by Isaiah the son of Amoż saying, 'Go and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins, and put off thy stoe from thy foot. And he did so, walking naked and bare-foot," (Isaiah xx. 2.)
45