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The Unknown Pilgrims
themselves in a straightforward and spontaneous fashion. One was immediately at ease with Mahāsati. She was eager to help, inform, guide; she replied to questions, procured documents and unfailingly saw to it that letters were duly answered.
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She was greatly helped, from a few years after her dikșă until she was of mature years, by her learned guru, Muni Śri Mohana Ruci. Her attitude towards him was one of profound, daughterly devotion and she consulted him often. For long years she was obliged to lead a sedentary life on account of a serious eye condition. She lived at the upāśraya of Ahmadnagara, the town where Muni Mohana Ruci, already advanced in years, was permanently residing.
As long as her health permitted, she gave numerous pravacanas, particularly in Mumbai, where she was well known. In her capacity as pravartini for a long period, she encouraged her disciples to study and kept those who were studying at her side in order to give them guidance.53
Why Ujjvala Vāņi?
In 1948 one of the Mumbai samghas made arrangements to collect and then publish the pravacanas that Mahāsati had given during the căturmãsya when she was twenty-nine years old. The śrāvakas thought that this course of instruction, put into one book, would be readily accessible to many readers. This collection is called: Ujjvala Vāṇī, the voice of Ujjvala. Even though the written text cannot convey the voice, the intonation of the spoken word, the warmth of conviction and physical presence of her person, it nevertheless does communicate to us the spirit of Mahāsati. This collection is all the more valuable and interesting in that it dates from the period which followed Independence, a period when the sadhvis were still confined to the strict orthodoxy of a conservative grouping. Mahāsati Ujjvalakumāri, even in those days, was not the one and only sadhvi to
53 During my stay at Ahmadnagara in 1971 she had 27 sädhvis under her direction; they were divided into 5 groups, out of which 4 were on vihara and I remained with her at the upăśraya, this last-named being composed of students.
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