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Pravrajyā: The Itinerant Life
557
1927, when Mahāsati Mohanadevi, in reply to some śrāvakas of Dilli who were wishing to commemorate the cāturmāsya that she had spent among them by a concrete gift and one that would last, replied that the most precious gift of all was vidya-dāna, the gift of knowledge, understanding and science, and that her request was that they should found a girls' school where not only would various ordinary subjects be taught but where the pupils would also be given a training in their own culture and Jaina tradition, this was an extremely novel proposal! She insisted greatly on the necessity of such institutions for the development of womankind and that of society at large.83 The śrāvakas applied themselves to the task, the school was founded and still exists today84
Kanya Siviras : Camps for young and older girls
Here we have an innovation of our own day. Sivira means a camp or a tent used in a camp, the word, until these last years, being used only in connection originally with the king's army and then, simply, with the army. Fairly recently, however, youth camps or camps for students or other groupings, have begun to take place frequently. Sadhvi Nirmalā,85 struck by the prevailing lopsidedness in favour of far-ranging and all-absorbing profane studies in contrast to a poor range of religious studies, especially those of a tradition whose adherents are a tiny minority - this state of affairs being aggravated by
83 Cf. Hukamadevi, pp. 149-150.
84 Mahāsati was very concerned to alert the śrāvakas to the crying needs of the day, particularly as regards education, culture and religion. Later on, in Jammū, she inspired a śrāvaka who was at that time a minister of the king to found a Jaina Vidyālaya, where, as in Dilli, general instruction was combined with the teaching of the Jaina dharma; ibid., pp. 222-223. Similarly, mention is made (cf. Umarāvakumvara, 1962, pp. 25-26) of the founding, in the same spirit and with the same intention, in Rājasthāna and Jammū, of Brāhmi Mahila Mandalas, associations of young women and girls for the study of literature with prepartion for a series of examinations; the name Brāhmi was chosen in memory of the erudite daughter of Ādinātha.
85 She belongs to the Tapāgaccha of Gujarāta; cf. P 255.
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