Shantisagar

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Acharya Shri Shantisagar Maharaj, Charitra Chakravarti

Acharya Shantisagar was the first Digambar Jain Acharya of the 20th century, and the first Digambar Jain monk to wander in North India after several centuries.

Padmanabh Jaini writes in the first paragraph of "The Path of Purification" (1979):

"It is August, 1955. On the holy mount of Kunthalagiri, in the state of Maharashtra in India, an old man called Santisagara (Ocean of peace) is ritually fasting to death. He is the acarya (spiritual leader) of the Digambara Jaina community; now, after thirty-five years as a mendicant, he is attaining his mortal end in the holy manner prescribed by the great saint Mahavira almost 2,500 years earlier. Santisagara has owned nothing, not even a loincloth, since 1920. He has wandered on foot over the length and breadth of India, receiving food offerings but once a day. and then with only his bare hands for a bowl; he has spoken little during daylight hours and not at all after sunset. From August 14 until September 7 he takes only water; then, unable to drink without help, he ceases even that. At last, fully conscious and chanting the Jain a litany, he dies in the early morning of September 18. The holiness and propriety of his life and of the manner of his death are widely known and admired by Jainas throughout India"

Charitra Chakravarti Charit

[edit] Chronological Outline

1872 born to Bhimagauda Patil and Satyavati at Yelagula (Bhoj), Karnataka, named Satgauda
1881 Married at age 9, wife passed away in six months
- Serves Muni Adisagar
- Father died
1905 Pilgrimage to Sammet Shikhar with sister
1915 Kshullaka Diksha by Muni Devakirti (Devappa Swami), former Sena Gana Bhattaraka
1918 Visit to Mt. Girnar
1919 Yarnal, Full Muni Diksha from Muni Devakirti
1921 First Chaurmas at Kognoli
1922 Ch Naslapur
1923 Ch Konnur. Encounter with snake in the cave