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The Šramaņi: The Worker
497
simplicity, from each, a small quantity of the meal prepared for the family, without incurring harm to anybody.
Why gocari? The main reason is ahiṁsā.79 As, however, human beings must needs nourish themselves, bhaktapāna-gaveşaņā, the quest for food and drink, is justified for sundry reasons as follows:
To alleviate) the pain (caused by hunger), to serve (the guruņi and the elders), to be capable of due attentiveness in one's comings and goings, (to attain) self-mastery, to retain oneself in
life, to reflect on the dharma. 80 These reasons are founded upon good sense and are directed towards the ideal being pursued. One must make the effort to ask for food and drink out of faithfulness to the state of life one has embraced; otherwise, weakness will engender negligence, an incapacity to concentrate and may also cause embarrassment to others. However, there are cases and circumstances in which one can dispense with food without committing a fault. These dispensations, of course, will have received the approval of the guruņi or ācārya. One may abstain from food:
In case of illness, calamity, to preserve one's chastity, out of compassion for living beings, as an act of penitence (a fast) or with a view to abandoning the body.81
The rules concerning gocari are extremely elaborate. A whole series of facts and possible circumstances are mentioned, with an indication of the correct attitude to be adopted in each such case or a similar one. It is not necessary to cite all these rules, which are in any case not set out in an orderly fashion and are often repetitive. Our task
79 Cf. DS VIII, 8; US XXXV, 10-11.
80 veyaņa veyāvacce iriyatthae ya saṁjamatthae
taha pāņavattiyāe chattham puna dhammacimtãe. US XXVI, 33.
81 ayaľke uvasagge titikkhayā bambhaceraguttisu
pāņidaya-tavaheuṁ sarira voccheyaņatthāe. US XXVI, 35; The final abandonment of the body is a religious action that takes place in accordance with a prescribed ritual; of. P 566 ff.
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