A History of Indian Literature v2.c20.s2.38

v2.c20.s2.38

more stress on severe asceticism, and even go as far as to recommend religious suicide. If a monk suffers from cold, he should rather freeze to death than break his vow. However ill and weak he may be, he should rather die than break his vow of fasting. He is to go naked, so as to expose himself to the pricking of the blades of grass, to the inclemency of the weather and the bites of the flies and mosquitoes. A long verse passage (I, 7, 8) includes, it is true, the famous ascetic rule, which is known to the Brahmins and Buddhists also, *viz.*, "He should not desire life, he should not long for death": this is, however, immediately followed by the characteristic rules on the various methods by which the accomplished sage is to starve himself to death by slow degrees. This passage is followed by a long narrative poem—really a mosaic of verses, in which it is often doubtful whether they *are* verses—the Ohāṇasuyaṃ (I, 8),¹ describing in a very graphic manner the ascetic life of the "Great Hero :"