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On hearing this, Indra put a further question,
"But why did these two monks shut their eyes one after another"?
The senior monk said,
"They are still on the steps to spiritual perfection. When they will reach the top, they will have no more hesitation".
The same may be said about the contents of this Chapter. Common people wonder how the sages could write so succinctly. But the explanation is simple, viz., that they did not have the least weakness in matters of sex so that they could write all this freely keeping in view the larger interest of the order. Most people in a country are good; but, at the same time, there are always some anti-social elements like thieves, looters, etc. For the latter there are laws which state: for this type of theft, such is the penalty, for this type of misconduct, such is the penalty. The monks too have a society of their own. In this society, too, there may be some who are dishonest. Therefore, for the organisational code of the society of monks, for whom conduct is extremely valuable, the above rules are neither unnecessary nor unnatural.
Method of Atonment
Atonements and their diverse methods are based on psychological considerations in both the Jaina and the Buddhist orders. The Jaina order prescribes ten atonements as follows:
1. Aloyana (alocana) whose precise meaning has
been as:
nibedana tallakṣaṇam suddhim yadarhatyaticāra jātam tadalocaná
When a fault has been committed, this atonement prescribes a free and frank confession by the monk to his acarya without supressing anything. This washes clean his mental dirt.
