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washed water around her gums, before spitting it out into a waiting spittoon. After that, she was finished. Mataji rose and formally blessed the women with her peacock fan.
    When the full ritual of the silent meal was finished, Mataji led me to the reception room of the monastery guest house. There she sat herself down cross-legged on a wicker mat in front of a low writing desk. On this were placed the two volumes of the scriptures she was currently studying, and about which she was writing a commentary. At a similar desk at the far end of the room sat a completely naked man – the maharaj of the math , silently absorbed in his writing. We nodded to each other, and he returned to his work. He was there, I presumed, to chaperone Mataji during our conversation: it would have been forbidden for her to stay alone in a room with a male who was not her guru.
    When she had settled herself, Mataji began to tell me the story of how she had renounced the world, and why she had decided to take the ritual of initiation, or diksha , as a Jain nun.
     

    ‘I was born in Raipur, Chattisgarh, in 1972,’ said Mataji. ‘In those days my name was Rekha. My family were wealthy merchants. They hailed from Rajasthan but moved to Chattisgarh for business reasons. My father had six brothers and we lived as a joint family, all together in the same house. My parents had had two boys before I was born, and for three generations there had been no girls in the family. I was the first one, and they all loved me, not least because I was considered a pretty and lively little girl, and had unusually fair skin and thick black hair, which I grew very long.
    ‘I was pampered by all of them, and my uncles would compete to spoil me. I was very fond of rasgulla and pedha [milky sweetmeats] and each one of my uncles would bring boxes for me. If I had gone to sleep by the time they returned from their warehouse they would wake me to give me the sweets, or sometimes a big pot of sweet, syrupy gulab jamun . Every desire of mine was fulfilled, and I was everyone’s favourite. Nobody ever beat or disciplined me, even in jest. In fact I do not remember even once my parents raising their voice, still less hitting me.
    ‘It was a very happy childhood. I had two best friends, one was a Jain from the rival Svetambara sect, the other a Brahmin girl, and their parents were also textile merchants. So we would all play with our dolls, and our families would get their tailors to design elaborate saris and salwars for them. When we were a little older, my uncles would take us to the movies. I loved Rekha, because she had the same name as me, and Amitabh Bachchan because he was the number-one hero in those days. My favourite movie was Coolie.
    ‘Then, when I was about thirteen, I was taken to meet a monk called Dayasagar Maharaj – his name means the Lord of the Ocean of Compassion. He was a former cowherd who had taken diksha when he was a boy of only ten years old, and now had a deep knowledge of the scriptures. He had come to Raipur to do his chaturmasa – the monsoon break when we Jains are forbidden to walk in case we accidentally kill the unseen life that inhabits the puddles. So for three months the maharaj was in our town, and every day he used to preach and read for all the young children. He told us how to live a peaceful life and how to avoid hurting other living creatures: what we should eat, and how we should strain water to avoid drinking creatures too small to be seen. I was very impressed and started thinking. It didn’t take long before I decided I wanted to be like him. His words and his teachings totally changed my life.
    ‘Within a few weeks I decided to give up eating after the hours of darkness, and also gave up eating any plant that grows beneath the earth: onions, potatoes, carrots, garlic and all root vegetables. Jain monks are forbidden these as you kill the plant when you uproot it – we are allowed to eat only plants such as rice which can