________________
Sugandha: Sweet Fragrance
597
C-Tapasvini Sadhvi Candrayaśa śri
Zeal for tapas
The short life of Sādhvi Candrayaśā- she left this world at the age of twenty-four - differs from those described in the foregoing biographies in many ways. This sādhvi was from Gujarāta and belonged to the Tapăgaccha. She was never betrothed or married, but herself choose the ascetic life in her adolescence. She exercised no particular functions within her group and we have in her regard just one shon biography.47 The very ancient tradition of the Tapāgaccha sets out, as its name indicates, to inculcate the great importance of tapas. It is also well-known that this gaccha is very flourishing in Gujarāta, that it contains acāryas many and powerful, as well as considerable number of munis. The impact of the acāryas and munis and the pressure of the surrounding Jaina community, numerically important and conservative in its approach, are factors conducing towards the infrequent appearance of the Tapāgaccha sādhvis in public. Their training is aimed above all at making of them ascetics vowed to total renunciation, purification by means of tapas in the form of fasts being stressed. Except for a few rare exceptions, they write very little. It is against the Tapāgaccha backdrop that a glimpse of the life of Sādhvi Candrayaśă is shown to us.
Her life was very simple, orientated, since her dikṣā and even prior to it, towards one particular goal, a life typical of a zealous śramaņi whose sole task is to work at her self-purification. There have been and there still are Tapāgaccha and other sādhvis equally zealous. If
47 Biography in English written by Sri V.G. Nair, 1969. A few years later another biography, also brief, was written in Gujarati by Sadhvi Sarvodāya Śri (her guruņi) and Sadhvi Vācamyamā Śri. It look me years to procure a copy of this biography. The Jaina Centre in Madrās which published the English text did not reply to letters and several Tapāgaccha śrāvakas whom I consulted did not know to whom I should address myself. Finally, at Ahamadābād, during the cãturmāsya of 1977, when I was visiting an upaśraya, a sădhvi happened to tell me that she was a disciple of Sādhvi Sarvodāya. She gave me her address in Bijāpura and in October I received the biography in the two languages.
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
