Vijaydharmasuri

Author(s): A J Sunavala
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Page 37

PREPARATION FOR A GREAT MISSION
THE LIFE-STORY OF A MONK BEGINS WITH HIS
DĪKSHA THE life-story of a monk or an ascetic may be said really to begin with his initiation or Dīkshā. For, if one reads the lives and biographies of the great Jaina sages, he will be convinced that the Jainas did not intend their monks to enclose themselves within the narrow circle of their monasteries, in the performance of the innumerable religious duties, and in the company of a few devout lay adherents. The life of the monk is not to be only one of absolute detachment, to be spent in study and in meditation; he is also expected to preach to the people, to give them advice and admonition, to become at once their teacher and their leader, their guide and their Guru. The task is, no doubt, beset with difficulties. To be a great religious teacher in the East is not the same thing as to be the head of some great faith in the West. For in the East the religious teacher, while observing the most absolute purity and devoting his whole life to the highest spirituality, never touches money in any shape or form. The first rule of his life is that he must possess no earthly things whatever, excepting the garb that he wears, and even this garb is so made as to be valueless for sale.