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438
The Unknown Pilgrims
marriage, in most cases the reply is simple and straightforward: married very young as she was, it was only after attaining a certain maturity, often also after having listened to homilies given by a muni or a sādhvi, that she was literally seized irresistibly by an attraction towards vairāgya. Sometimes it is the young husband who hears this call; the young wife follows suit and asks for admission to the community of sādhvis.44 One also meets some sādhvis, whether widows or not, who receive dikṣā at a ripe age, followed by one or several of their adolescent daughters who regard the state of renunciation as the lostiest of ideals.45
There are also most certainly, and increasingly frequently, vocations among girls who, in the course of their studies and for various reasons, feel themselves attracted to the ascetic life.
It would certainly be incorrect 10 think that all the young widow sādhvis or widow's daughter sādhvis of earlier generations were lacking in fervour; very much to the contrary. However, social conditions do change and nowadays we are witnessing instances of more personal choice at a more nature age, independently of family circumstances.
To make the preceding more concrete we may take note of three sets of interesting and revealing statistics. The first concerns the Terāpanthi sādhvis. Under their founder and first Ācārya between the years 1764 and 1802, so one observes in the records, out of fifty-six sādhvis, all had been married very young, forty-nine were widows and seven had left their husbands to join the sādhvis. Under the second
44 Cf. the biography of Sadhvi Śri Lādāṁ. She was already desirous of . following her husband on the ascetic path, when the latter was speedily carried off by a disease. She persevered and received diksā (P 625 ff.). Räjimati also here comes to mind (P 103 ff.). I met in Mumbai a young couple from a very well-to-do background. They were both preparing for dikșa, leaving their little 4 year old girl in the hands of her grandparents.
45 At Ahmadābād in 1977 two sādhvi sisters (siblings) spoke to me of their sādhvi mother and muni father.
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