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722
The Unknown Pilgrims
Behind the words, one can feel the warmth and persuasiveness characteristic of pravacanas. Each subject taken up and developed forms part of a whole which introduces us to progressively deeper reflections and considerations. The style is that of a very learned, thoughtful person, who knows how to express herself in a readily understandable, concrete and undogmatic fashion. One is struck on reading this collection of pravacansa, by the number of quotations belonging to other traditions and cultures: the śruti, the Bhagavad Gitā, Mahābhārata, Rāmāyaṇa, Purăņa, bhakti pocms (of both North and South), the Dhammapada and Buddhist tradition, Sikh Scriptures, poems in Urdu and Persian, quotations from the Greek philosophers, from the Bible and from the Islamic tradition; historical reminiscences from the history of India, England, America and France, quotations from English, French and American authors, among them two names which one would hardly expect to find in a religious discourse, those of Voltaire and Victor Hugo!
A brief analysis of this astonishing variety of quotations leads us to conclude that the author has read widely, that she is well able to make her talks lively and to help her audience become receptive and enlarge its horizons. However, even if Mahāsati is very well read, it is certain, judging from the choice of certain quotations, that she has not been able to assimilate, for lack of the necessary masters, the religious and cultural traditions of other countries. She quotes and makes observations out of context, without ever giving references, not infrequently manifesting a certain rather unfavourable prejudice, simply through ignorance, towards the tradition or culture in question. What is grievous, and even painful, is that a Sadhvi should
8 To quote examples would take us too far from our present purpose. Given the brevity of the judgements delivered out of context, it would be necessary, for a proper assessment, to give a survey of the context in question, together
ces, and then to show that the opinion expressed in this book is far too hasty because of a fundamental ignorance of the relevant facts, situations, peoples and religions. One could make a similar observation concerning quotations not originating in Indian culture that the author has gleaned at random from her reading and thus torn from their context. To refer to other traditions is, in itself, excellent, but it is necessary first to have assimilated that of which one speaks. In this collection, the author would have been wiscr to limit herself - outside the Jaina tradition - to
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