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The Unknown Pilgrims
questions of procedure, which in any case vary according to different sampradāyas and localities, we shall proceed to consider the conditions a vairăgini must fulfill in order to be accepted. She must be at least eight years old 17 and less than seventy and must be in good health; persons susfering from chronic maladies, the blind, crippled or enfeebled are not admitted. She must be of sound mind and have a certain capacity at least for study, must give evidence of a sociable nature and of being in good standing, that is, of having no outstanding debts nor being bound by a work-contract or any other liability.18 These conditions follow the norms of society and of good sense; they are necessary for a life that will be austere, lived in community and yet in contact with society, all these three being characteristics of the style of life that these vairăginis are preparing to adopt. In theory there is no restriction as regards caste or family background.19 \However, the sampradāyas and gacchas do have a tendency, more pronounced or less according to the various regions, to recruit their ascetics from within certain milicus.
the candidate but also as to her aptitudes, such as her intelligence, capacity for study, health, physical resistance, sociability. Finally the committee of Mulun was also consulted.
17 Cf. VS X, 20-21. But recently, in the concluding day (May 13, 1987) of the plenary session of the Sramana Samgha (branch of the Sthānakvāsis) meeting, at Pune, presided by Ācārya Ananda Rişi and attended by numerous munis and sädhvis, it has been announced that the young candidates will not be given dikşă before a five years period of studies in Jaina doctrine. This step will considerably restrict "bata-diksa dikṣā to children). As for the adults they will have to study the Jaina doctrine for a period of three years before receiving dikṣā.
18 Cf. JSB Sam V, pp. 406-409 (Pravacanasâroddhāra 108; 792) where more unusual cases are also proscribed: eunuchs, homosexuals and those still breast-feeding a child. Certain cases date back to an age gone by. Persons who are enemies of the king are rejected, as also those who may have been placed under constraint in the śramaņisamgha without their parents' knowledge
19 US XII gives the ex. of Harikesin Bala, a muni and sage, who came from a family of cāņdālas (untouchables).
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