Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

^0 S E C O N D M O O N 06from the effect of the physical weaving and bobbing and the stench ofdust-laden diesel fumes, the nerve endings were further seared by thecontinual welter of harsh sound: a truck or bus driver in India drives withone thumb almost constantly rammed on the horn, and the small frymimic the leviathans. In India not many bikes had lights but they all hadbells; ox carts had the whoops and calls of their drivers, scooters hadhooters, lorries had klaxons. They were like the four castes; Nick and I,inaudible, marginalized and shoved to the worst part of the track,walked hunched and harried in the way of the Untouchables. “I feel asif I have been liberated from hell,” said Ambedkar immediately after hisconversion: by the time we arrived at the outskirts of Fazil Nagar, I hadan inkling of what he meant.Nick had some vague indications of a Jain dharamsala (pilgrims’ resthouse)in Fazil Nagar where we could stop for the night. The idea of aJain resthouse was intriguing. The things I’d heard about Jain renunciationmade us bhikkhus look soft. Apparently they didn’t shave theirheads: the monks (nuns too?) had every hair on their bodies pulled out.They didn’t have almsbowls; instead they had to collect food in theirhands and were only allowed to go to a limited number of houses toglean alms. Of the two Jain sects, one wore white robes, the other, “skyclad,”wore nothing.Jainism had formed at the same time as Buddhism, and like theBuddha, Mahavira, its nominal founder, claimed to have had manyenlightened predecessors. For both these teachers, their predecessorsand their disciples were samanas, people who had abandoned caste andavowed no allegiance to gods. In the samanas’ tradition the realisationof truth came through direct gnosis in a life styled on purificationthrough austerity rather than rite. Probably predating the Aryan conquest,the tradition was incompatible with the Vedic system; it must havebeen sustained by recluses in forests and caves over the centuries, but itgained a broad focus through the popularity of the Buddha andMahavira. The two masters apparently did not meet, and their teachings9 8