________________
Sugandha: Sweet Fragrance
emboldened herself to cross the borders of Rajasthāna and pass through the villages fo Madhya Pradeśa; thus we find her at Ujjayini, Bhopala, Indaura.23 At Gväliyara she was received in triumph. An influential śravaka, who had on several occasions implored her to come and spend the caturmasya in that town, organised things on a grand scale when she arrived with her group of twenty-nine sädhvis. A procession, the first of its kind within living memory, was waiting to welcome the sadhvis at the entrance to the town: at its head was the royal elephant, followed by a hundred or so horses caparisoned with gold and silver, the children of the nobility riding in carriages, on foot a concourse of men with the local notables at the front, while here and there in the procession several bands were playing their music. Sadhvi Punya, her disciples and the group of women brought up the rear.24 Of this last group there was one special feature: one could hear its singing but could not see it. The women of that time were living in strict seclusion and they were advancing now within a huge moving
tent.
On her arrival in the town, Sadhvi Punya organised daily pravacanas attended by eager crowds; sometimes she herself taught and sometimes she delegated the task to one or other of the sadhvis. When the king and the royal family evidenced a desire to have the darśana of Sadhvi Punya and her disciples, these latter repaired to the court. Sadhvi Punya even gave a pravacana, seated, in accordance with custom, on a low wooden table, while the audience, including the king and queen, were seated on the ground on carpets. It is said that the king and other members of the royal family, touched by her words, pledged themselves to abstain from meat on the occasion of ekadasi, the eleventh day of each fortnight of the lunar month.25
She had the gift of communicating her knowledge, rendering it accessible to all in a way that carried conviciton, that conviction which characterised her pravacanas, and she furthermore bore witness
23 Ibid., ch. 37.
24 Ibid., ch. 40.
25 Ibid., ch. 41.
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