________________
382
O assemblage of mendicants! Only those mendicants who are careful about the consequences (good or bad) of previous actions, and attentive in avoiding the 42 faults relating to the accep tance of food and drink-materials, and who always speak undeceitful language, are true mendicants. Such is the Dharma (sacred duty) of a true ascetic. Even vowless house-holders whose hands are at all tinged with the blood of killing, are fit for censure in this world, and they suffer miseries in their future existences, although they may be daily feeding two thousand bodhi sattva bhikṣus. If any body says that in case he is invited to a dinner of a dish of flesh of a goat killed specially for him prepared with red pepper and other condiments, he can willingly partake of that dish of flesh and that there is no sin in it then, I say, he is a savage and he is only longing for the pleasures of the organ of taste. Any one taking such a dinner is decidely doing a sinful act even if he does not know that it is so. A wiseman never has the slightest desire for such obnoxious food and he will never utter such deceitful words.
The saints of Sramaņa Bhagavâna Mahāvìra, simply out of compassion towards all living creatures, will always abstain from sinful acts and they will never accept food and drink materials specially prepared for them as such materials are actually atten ded with some faults. They have abandoned all varieties of injuring and killing of living beings and therefore they will not accept food and drink materials about which there is the slightest doubt about mjury or killing regarding the requisite purity prescribed by the Sastras. It 13 the sacred duty of mendicants in this world. Only those true ascetics, well-versed with the real nature of True Religion, who, while carefully attending to the 42 defects of accepting food and drink-materiais lead chaste and tranquil lives, and while leading ascetic life with pertect renouncement towards wordly pleasure, readily attain world-wide fame.
Discussion with Brâhmaņa Ascetics.
As soon as the Buddhist Monks were refuted, some Brāh
Jain Education International
For Private Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
