Sacred Energy

A wandering Jain monk sleeps on the bare ground and eats only what is freely offered, refusing anything specially prepared for him alone

The refusal of specially prepared food ties directly to non-violence, since made-to-order food implicates the ascetic in whatever harm went into preparing it.

Jain ascetic discipline governs even where a monk sleeps and what he eats through detailed rules known as vasati and ahara, rooted in the twin principles of non-attachment and non-violence. A wandering monk owns no permanent dwelling and typically sleeps on bare ground or a simple mat wherever space is offered for the night, moving on rather than settling. Food is gathered in a practice sometimes compared to a cow grazing: the monk takes small portions from multiple households, and refuses any food prepared specifically for him, since food made-to-order would implicate him in whatever harm to living things — even to plants and the smallest organisms Jain cosmology recognizes as ensouled — went into its special preparation. The rule is less about hardship for its own sake than about extending Jainism's central commitment to non-violence into the ordinary act of feeding oneself, refusing to let anyone else absorb harm on the ascetic's behalf.

Written about in

• What celibate orders say about sleep and waking

  A wandering Jain monk sleeps on the ground and eats only what is already offered, so that nobody prepares anything on his account.