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Dikṣā: Consecration
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saying that "the atman must always be protected by perfect control of the senses."38
The Daśavaikālika-sūtra is not intended for study at the outset, only afterwards to be left to one side. It is the Sūtra which, more than any other, must be ceaselessly pondered, in order to live in the spirit thereof and to follow its rules.
At this point we are no more than on the threshold of vairāgya, a threshold which the vairāgiņi is now going to cross through dikşā.
C - Diksă-vidhi: The site of consecration
Dikṣā, consecration, is for the vairāgiņi a new birth. She abandons totally all that binds her to this world in order to enter, once and for all, upon the state of life of an anagari, home-less one, of a nirgranthi, one freed from attachments, of a śramaņi, one who works ceaselessly at her own purification. This state transcends the human realm called saṁsāra, which is vulnerable to the clutches of time and temporal factors. Through her dikṣā, the vairāgini transcends the temporal, contingent, and perishable; she is consecrated to a spiritual quest. There are no secondary goals or occupations of one sort or another to which she may devote herself within the framework of an ascetic life. No, there is absolutely no other commitment than the formal one to advance on the path that leads to the transtemporal, namely, mokşa and nirvana.
However, even though this consecration involves a radical separation it by no means leaves the new sādhvi isolated. Although all depends on her own personal effort, it is within a community-life that she is guided and sustained, that she struggles both to purify and train herself and also to guide others in her turn as gradually her faith in the doctrine is strengthened and her knowledge deepened. Each and every sādhvi must not only attend to her own spiritual progress, but must also act as yeast for the saṁgha - and thus for the other sådhvis, the
38 appā khalu sayayaṁ rakkhiyavvo savviņdiehim susamāhiehiṁ..DS cūlikā 2, 16.
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