Is santhara against the law?

Hemali Chhapia and Mansi Choksi

The century-old practice of santhara has been in the eye of a storm since 2006 when the case of 93-year-old Keila Devi Hirawat from Jaipur had the world's media debating whether there was any place for santhara in the modern world. Human rights activist and lawyer Nikhil Soni and his lawyer Madhav Mishra filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in the Rajasthan high court, claiming that santhara was a social evil and should be considered suicide under Indian law. One of the concerns raised in the petition was that it is old people who usually resort to santhara - and allowing an elderly person to suffer without medical assistance, food and water is inhuman. Jains, however, argue that it is a voluntary act of rational thinking and marks the beginning of a journey of understanding the inherently painful and flawed nature of earthly existence. For millions of Jains in India, the PIL was a direct violation of the Indian Constitution's guarantee of religious freedom.

While opponents of santhara equate the practice with suicide and argue that it's a fundamental breach of Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, which guarantees the right to life but not death, supporters say that the right to life includes a corresponding right not to live. Pana Chand Jain, former Rajasthan high court judge, wrote in The Times of India, "Sallekhana is a system of belief which Jains regard as conducive to their spiritual well-being . The preamble to the Constitution states that the Constitution secures to all its citizens liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship . Article 25 guarantees that every person in India shall have freedom of conscience and a right to profess, practice and propagate religion. Article 29 goes further and declares that any section of citizens having a distinct culture shall have a right to conserve the same. If any law comes in conflict with constitutional rights, it will have to yield."

Jains believe that santhara cannot be considered suicide - they say it is something that one does with full knowledge and intent, unlike suicide which is viewed as emotional and hasty. Vimal Sagarji maharajsaheb, a Jain monk, offers a different view when he says that there is a thin line between santhara and suicide. "In most cases, Jains have successfully elevated themselves after embracing santhara , he says. "But in certain instances, people have faced immense mental and physical test while observing santhara and have not easily felt peace with themselves. So, whether santhara is suicide or a holy practice to attain moksha, I feel, is for the person embracing santhara to answer for himself."

Another bone of contention is the prolonged nature of santhara, with supporters arguing that the individual is given enough time to reflect on his or her life. They say that the individual has the freedom to change his or her mind through the fast. However, this claim is shouted out by opponents who argue that undoing the santhara may incur social ostracism within the community.

Legal experts too are divided on this issue. Advocate Mahesh Jethmalani says that if deprivation of food and water eventually leads to death, it is considered suicide. "Even Sati is ordained by the Hindu scriptures, but it is banned because it clashed with criminal law. There is a constitutional right which guarantees the freedom to practice the religion of your choice. But that cannot hold before criminal law. That's the law of the land."


On the other hand, advocate Sanjay Jain says that santhara is merely a practice of giving up food. "No one can force you to eat," he says. Articles 25 and 26 of the Indian Constitution protect all religious practices , unless otherwise prohibited by law. "The Indian government passed an act banning Sati. That has not been done for santhara," Jain argues to counter Jethmalani's views.

Inside India's Sacred Heart

Exclusive excerpts from bestselling author william dalrymple’s forthcoming book on a modern nation’s ancient beliefs.

Two hills of blackly gleaming granite, smooth as glass, rise from a thickly wooded landscape of banana plantations and jagged palmyra palms. It is dawn. Below lies the ancient pilgrimage town of Sravanabelagola, where the crumbling walls of monasteries, temples and dharamsalas cluster around a grid of dusty, red earth roads. The roads converge on a great rectangular tank. The tank is dotted with the spreading leaves and still-closed buds of floating lotus flowers. Already, despite the early hour, the first pilgrims are gathering.

For more than 2,000 years, this Karnatakan town has been sacred to the Jains. It was here, in the third century BC, that the first Emperor of India, Chandragupta Maurya, embraced the Jain religion and died through a self-imposed fast to the death, the emperor’s chosen atonement for the killings for which he had been responsible in his life of conquest. Twelve hundred years later, in AD 981, a Jain general commissioned the largest monolithic statue in India, sixty feet high, on the top of the larger of the two hills, Vindhyagiri. This was an image of another royal Jain hero, Prince Bahubali.

It was in a temple just short of the summit that I first laid eyes on Prasannamati Mataji. I had seen the tiny, slender, barefoot figure of the nun in her white sari bounding up the steps above me as I began my ascent. She climbed quickly, with a pot of water made from a coconut shell in one hand, and a peacock fan in the other. As she climbed, she gently wiped each step with the fan in order to make sure she didn’t stand on, hurt or kill a single living creature on her ascent of the hill: one of the set rules of pilgrimage for a Jain muni or ascetic.

It was only when I got to the Vadegall Basadi, the temple which lies just below the summit, that I caught up with her — and saw that despite her bald head Mataji was in fact a surprisingly young and striking woman. She had large, wide-apart eyes, olive skin and an air of self-contained confidence that expressed itself in a vigour and ease in the way she held her body. But there was also something sad and wistful about her expression as she went about her devotions; and this, combined with her unexpected youth and beauty, left one wanting to know more.

It was only the following day that I applied for, and was given, a formal audience — or as the monks called it, darshan — with Mataji at the monastery guest house; and it was only the day after that, as we continued our conversations, that I began to learn what had brought about her air of unmistakable melancholy.

“We believe that all attachments bring suffering,” said Prasannamati Mataji, after we had been talking for some time. “This is why we are supposed to give them up. It is one of the main principles of Jainism — we call it aparigraha. This was why I left my family, and why I gave away my wealth.”

We were talking in the annex of a monastery prayer hall, and Mataji was sitting cross-legged on a bamboo mat, raised slightly above me on a low dais. The top of her white sari was now modestly covering her plucked head. “For many years, I fasted or ate at most only once a day,” she continued. “Like other nuns, I often experienced hunger and thirst. I tried to show compassion to all living creatures, and to avoid all forms of violence, passion or delusion. I wandered the roads of India barefoot.” As she said this, the nun ran a hand up the hard and callused sole of her unshod foot. “Every day I suffered the pain of thorns and blisters. All this was part of my effort to shed my last attachments in this illusory world.”

“But,” she said, “I still had one attachment — though of course I didn’t think of it in that way.” “What was that?” I asked.

“My friend, Prayogamati,” she replied. “For twenty years we were inseparable companions, sharing everything. For our safety, we Jain nuns are meant to travel together, in groups or in pairs. It never occurred to me that I was breaking any of our rules. But because of my close friendship with her, I formed not just an attachment, but a strong attachment — and that left an opening for suffering. But I only realised this after she died.”

There was a pause, and I had to encourage Mataji to continue. “In this stage of life we need company,” she said. “You know, a companion with whom we can share ideas and feelings. After Prayogamati left her body, I felt this terrible loneliness. In truth, I feel it to this day. But her time was fixed. When she fell ill — first with TB and then malaria — her pain was so great she decided to take sallekhana, even though she was aged only thirty-six.” “Sallekhana?”

“It’s the ritual fast to the death. We Jains regard it as the culmination of our life as ascetics. It is what we all aim for, and work towards as the best route to Nirvana....

“First you fast one day a week, then you eat only on alternate days: one day you take food, the next you fast. One by one, you give up different types of food. You give up rice, then fruits, then vegetables, then juice, then buttermilk. Finally you take only water, and then you have that only on alternate days. Eventually, when you are ready, you give up that too. If you do it very gradually, there is no suffering at all. The body is cooled down, so that you can concentrate inside on the soul, and on erasing all your bad karma.”

She smiled: “You have to understand that for us death is full of excitement. It’s just as exciting as visiting a new landscape or a new country: we feel excited at a new life, full of possibilities.” “But you could hardly have felt excited when your friend left you like this.” “No,” she said, her face falling. “It is hard for those who are left.” She stopped. For a moment Mataji lost her composure; but she checked herself.

“After Prayogamati died, I could not bear it. I wept, even though we are not supposed to. Any sort of emotion is considered a hindrance to the attainment of Enlightenment. We are meant to cultivate indifference — but still I remember her.”

Again her voice faltered. She slowly shook her head. “The attachment is there even now,” she said. “I can’t help it. We lived together for twenty years. How can I forget?”

“Do you think you will meet her in another life?” I said.

“It is uncertain,” said Mataji. “Our scriptures are full of people who meet old friends and husbands and wives and teachers from previous lives. But no one can control these things.”
Again Mataji paused, and looked out of the window. “Though we both may have many lives ahead of us, in many worlds,” she said, “who knows whether we will meet again? And if we do meet, in our new bodies, who is to say that we will recognise each other?”

She looked at me sadly as I got up to go and said simply. “These things are not in our hands.”

William Dalrymple’s ‘Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India’ is published by Bloomsbury/Penguin in India on October 14

suicide & sanlekhana(santhara):- are anonyms of each other

by:- Dr. A.P. Jain

In the time of great debate on sanlekhna I would like to share something with u

I am an MBBS doctor $ while studying psychiatory I have come accross an interesting thing -

A Psychiatrist Ross has given a theory in which he describes 5 stages of death as follows:

1 denial:- means the person denies fof his death , he says it is not the tine for his deeath {even though he is terminally ill}

2 anger :- means he fights with the death , shows anger on it .It is astage where he cannot simply deny his inevitable death , $ so he is angry

3 bargain:- next he does is that bhe bargains to death{ or rather god} that ok he is dying but-----
4 depression:- now he is depressed $ very sad , knows he is dying but is still not accepting it

5 acceptence :- now he is tired of arguments $ his deppressin becomes unbearable or rather useless $ he surrenders i.e/ he accepts his death

Now , My point is that if in aterminal illness or so one has to finally accept his inevitable death then what is wrong in sanlekhna,here also one is accepting death which is inevitable
The person is not calling or desiring his death{as alleged by some people as sanlekhna being cfompared to sati or suicide} but he is "accepting" it $ there is a lot of difference in acceptence $ desire

suicide is lust for life in deep sense:-

It is very strange but is a fact that the person who comits suicide has the lust for life and that too at its extreme.

How?

The answer is of great depth.Let us analyse it.

Why a person commits suicide? he comits suicide not because he doesn't like life, but he is commiting suicide because he has a strong preoccupation for life- he loved a beautiful lady , she left her, now he can't imagine a life without her- if at the very moment of suicide , his beloved returns to him ,he will not die- so he is dieing because of the lust for life with that lady-there is no desire for death but the desire for a particular life is so strong that it has taken the form of a lust & there seems to us that he is suiciding due to his desire to die- NO HE DOESN'T HAVE ANY DESIRE TO DIE- he has lust for life.

Whenever a person has a strong desire to life, at the same time in his subconscious somewhere he has the suicidal tendency also.

Mahavir says that the saadhak should not have strong desire for life- the sanlekhna or the santhara can be only performed in its real sense by a person who doesn;t have strong desire to life.

So, then will it be correct to say that santhara comes from the desire to die?

No, it is not like that
We must realise that there can be only 2 states- one in which there is no desire & the other where bthere is desire for life- there is no such state in which there is desire for death.
Death can never be desired & a person who don't have adesire even for life then how he could have desire for death?

They are parts of the same thing- 'desire'

A person who do not have desire for life will not have any desire to die & a person who have desire for ,will be also having a desire to die( in cases when he doesn't experiences the life according to his desire)

Or we can say- jeevaneshna & mrityueshna exists in the same person & if the person is able to leave the jeevaneshna then the mrityueshna will automatically go away.

So, suicider is in the greatest depth of jeevaneshna at which the laypersons call it as mrityueshna though in the deep sense they both are same.

And, a saadhak in santhara or the sanlekhna is free from jeevaneshna & so he will be not having the mrityueshna also.

Also samadhi is not an impulsive act like the suicide- the two acts are entirely different.
Psychiatrists says that the suicide is done due to impulse & if we r able to pass the particular moment of impulse then the same person will not do suiocide because for doing suicide he needs an impulse to do it.

In samadhi, Mahavir has asked to stop having food & water. We know that a person can live without food for more than one month .

Now if the santhara is an impulsive act then the time of a month or so must be very long enough for this impulse to be over, but if after that also the saadhak is steady in the samadhi-it means his act cannot be due to an impulse.

Think upon our own thoughts- we think of dieing at 8 am & to kill the other person in the evening - these all are impulses- you avoid your acts at those particular moments & you will find that you don't really had those particular intentions in those particular instances

"Sanlekhna is the opposite of suicide"
"Suicide is the result of strong desire for life"