vi. Diśivrata parimāṇa. We saw how the Jaina believe that the limitation of desire curtails sin by limiting the motives for sinning; they also believe that setting bounds to one's travels (Diśivrata parimāṇa) curtails sin by restricting the area in which one can sin.
The vow taken runs:
'I fix a limit of height and depth and circumference. If I have to pass this limit, willing and in my body, I vow not to indulge any of the five āśrava. . . . [The five Atiċāra are] transgression of the limit above, below or around, altering the position of the bounds fixed by increasing one and decreasing the other, and proceeding further when a doubt arises as to the limits.'
It is only laymen who take this vow. A sādhu does not vow that he will limit the possible places to which he may wander, for the farther he wanders the fewer intimate friends he can make; and friendship is forbidden to a sādhu, lest it lead to love. But he does promise never to make his wanderings an excuse for luxury by sitting in a boat, a carriage, a cart, or a train, or riding on a horse.[1] Breaking this vow leads to excommunication.[2] A sādhu of the Tapagaċċha sect travelled constantly by train and was therefore excommunicated. He still continues to go by rail wearing sādhu dress; but seeing him in a train
- ↑ The writer had an opportunity not long ago of seeing how strictly the ascetics keep this vow. An aged nun was very ill, and the community was most anxious that she should go and see an English lady doctor. She refused to be conveyed to the hospital by carriage or in a litter, and at length in despair her friends asked the writer to request the doctor to go and see her at the Apāsaro.
- ↑ Excommunication of sādhus is still fairly common; for instance, a Sthānakavāsī sādhu in Rājkot bit his guru and was excommunicated in consequence. The Sthānakavāsī laymen ordered a coat and trousers to be made for him and forced him to abandon his sādhu dress and don these. They then gave him a railway ticket to Thān (a station about forty-four miles distant) and sent him away. They told the writer that they could do this because this cannibal bonne bouche had been enjoyed in a native state; they would have been afraid to act so sternly in British territory. This sādhu repented most deeply and implored forgiveness in Rājkot, but the laymen refused it. In other towns he was, however, acknowledged as a sādhu, and he died wearing sādhu dress.
