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Antimă Śuddhi: The Final Purification
sādhvis who are in constant contact with society at large, tend to follow the customs of the day, while at the same time pursuing their ascetic life. In olden days the sädhvis were inclined to put up with suffering and illness without paying much heed to it and to walk in a heroic manner to the end, without complaint. They sought relief hardly at all, the illness was all part of the process of purification and, though not ill-treating the body, they let it disintegrate little by little and fulfil its course as a bodily sheath, which is material and thus perishable in kind. In our own day, for the most part, the sadhvis are not only cared for and visit the doctor, but they may also enter hospital, follow a course of treatment there and even undergo an operation. After a stay in hospital or an operation, they must expiate by the appropriate prāyaścittas all the faults against ahimsa that they have incurred.7
563
Going on from these few general considerations, let us see how things work out during the vihāras. If a sadhvi is ill for a short while, the group prolongs its stay, waiting for her to be well again. If the illness requires a lengthy treatment in some given place, then there are several possibilities from which to choose as the particular case suggests: in a sizeable group the sadhvis divide up, the greater number depart on vihara with the guruni, while several sådhvis remain behind with the invalid. This smaller group often remains on the spot, changing, if possible, their upāśraya from time to time to another in the same locality; or again, the sick sadhvi is left in the care of some śrāvikā till her recovery. Sometimes there are cases of some chronic illness which prevents a sadhvi moving from place to place.
6 One notices, e.g., a difference in this regard between the biography of Sadhvi Punya (1858-1916) and that of our contemporary, Sadhvi Vicakṣaṇa. Now, both belonged to the same gaccha and both were zealous sadhvis, but the epoch was different; cf. P 575 ff.; 584 ff.
7
The Terapanthis are on the whole strict and little in favour of surgical operations; in certain cases a sadhvi may, after an operation, receive a new dikṣā.
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