Page:The Heart of Jainism (IA heartofjainism00stevuoft).djvu/174

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146
THE NINE CATEGORIES OF

a monk must not go out from the Apāsaro (monks’ rest-house) to beg for food; and, as no layman may take food to the Apāsaro, it often happens that during the rainy season the sādhus get really hungry in their endeavours to avoid acquiring karma. Again, a monk must not take food if he thinks that by so doing he will leave the donor’s household in straits; in fact there are altogether forty-two faults which a sādhu must avoid committing when he begs for or receives food. A layman is simply bound to refrain from committing sin in order to obtain food. Under this rule again all intoxicants[1] are forbidden to monks and laymen, and so are meat, butter and honey.

In order to stop the inflow of karma a sādhu must also be careful to possess only five cloths {Ādānanikṣepaṇā samiti), and when these are presented to him he must take them with the greatest care, gently removing anything that may be on them, lest in the very receiving of them he injure any insect life. If he borrows a stool (for he may not own one) he must dust it carefully and then sweep the ground free from any insects before he sets it down. In the same way a householder should arrest the possible inflow of karma by carefully dusting all his books and vessels with a poñjaṇī, the small brush used by the laity, which is a smaller edition of the brush a sādhu may never part from. A layman must also scrupulously sweep his hearth and the wood he is going to burn, and be very careful that the room he is going to keep his water-vessels in is thoroughly swept. The result of these rules (as any one who has had the privilege of friendship with Jaina ladies will testify) is to keep a Jaina house exquisitely clean and fresh.

The careful disposal of rubbish and refuse is another way of preventing karma being acquired (Parithāpanikā samiti[2] or Utsarga samiti). If a sādhu after begging food

  1. So particular are the old-fashioned Jaina not to touch intoxicants, that one reason they give for refusing to take European medicine is that it might contain alcohol.
  2. Otherwise, Pratisthāpana samiti.