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424
The Unknown Pilgrims
thus easily transportable. The pătras kept for food are of extremely light wood, while for drinking gourds are often used. As a general rule, the sādhvis keep their water in jugs belonging to the śrāvakas of the placce where they are sojourning. In order to preserve them properly and avoid any decomposition of foodstuffs, the pătras are varnished. The Tapāgacha sadhvis have pătras painted red on the outside with a black stripe and yellow on the inside. 14 Among the Kharataragaccha it is the other way round; they are painted black with a red stripe. The Sthānakavāsi and Terāpanthi sādhvis, on the whole, varnish their bowls without painting them.
When they are about to set out for gocari, the begging of food, the two appointed sādhvis place several pătras of differing sizes in a light piece of cloth that they proceed to knot at the four corners, making thus a sort of bag that they carry in the hand; as for gourds, they carry two, one on top of the other and both held by an elastic which acts as a handle.
The sādhvis have other pătras of plastic or aluminium which are used for their excrements at the time of sauca, the evacuation of bodily wastes. To be faithful to the utsarga-samiti,is they use these vessels at night and in the towns, where it is impossible to find a solitary spot in natural surroundings.
14 Having asked several sādhvis of sundry groups the reason for the red and black colouring, I was given 3 different and interesting replies: by one sādhvi at Ahmadābād: "The red symbolizes love, the block hatred; these two colours remind us that we must always control these passions." By a sādhvi in Rajasthāna: "Thanks to these bright colours we can always easily spot insects on the bowls." By a third at Mumbai: "The red symbolises the siddhas, the black the sādhus (allusion to the Namaskāra-mantra)".
15 Cf. P 359. The majority do not use a w.c.; cf. DasasS VIII, 69, where 3 matras or pătras are said to be permitted for utsarga-samiti during the monsoon. Here is one example of ahiṁsā pushed to an extreme and of rules which, being inherited from a far-distant age when the country was covered with jungle, are obsolete in our own day.
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