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The Unknown Pilgrims
There is no furniture except beds of wood like low tables, arranged neatly against the four walls of the room. Sometimes, however, the sādhvis slcep on the floor. Their are a few books and often some book-rests for use in reading and study. In a corner the pātras are carefully arranged, along with one or more jugs of water and some buckets for the washing of clothes. In the winter there are some folded blankets for use at night. The sădhvis sit on the floor-level upon āsanas, small mats which are used by their visitors also. All these accessories belong to the upāśraya. In this same room or in an adjacent one, if two or three rooms are at their disposal, the sădhvis receive visitors. There are often men or women servants attached to the upăśraya, who sweep and wash the floor regularly. Everything is kept meticulously clean out of regard for ahiṁsā.
The Terāpanthis have no upăśrayas, for they aspire to the strict observance and urge a return to the original ideal, which adjured both temples and organised upāśrayas as being sources of worldly concerns, of a spirit of possessiveness and thus of greed and disputes. However, in a certain way this community is, thanks to its centralisation, excellently organised, in the first place by the acārya and then at the provincial and local levels; furthermore, on account of this organisation, the munis and sādhvis are by no means left to their own devices on their journeyings. With them it works out like this: the anuvrata-samitis or societies of lesser vows for śrāvakas and śrāvikās possess premises where travelling munis and sādhvis can lodge. During the monsoon months śrāvakas who own large properties place a house, an appartment or an annexe at the disposition of the sādhvis. The upāśraya in this case is not a permanent place belonging to the samgha.
Sometimes it happens in the course of a long pilgrimage that at one stop or another, in a village, or town, there is no Jaina samgha. In this case the sadhvis look for some suitable shelter where they may request hospitality. According to what is available, they may stay in a women's āśrama, a dharmaśālā, a school or a private house, even if the owners are not Jainas, provided that they are vegetarian, of good
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