The diamond trader and his family members will embrace monkhood at a ceremony near the Sabarmati
A Surat-based diamond trader and his family members will embrace monkhood tomorrow at a ceremony in Ahmedabad's Sabarmati area, trustees of a Jain religious body said today. Sanjay Shah, 53, his wife Nitaben, 49, along with their daughter Pooja, 26, and son Darshil, 24, would become Jain monks and nuns at the ceremony tomorrow, to be held under the aegis of the Jain Shwetambar Murtipujak Sangh, its trustees said.
"Sanjay Shah, who was into diamond trading in Surat, along with his entire family would take diksha tomorrow. While Shah's son is pursuing chartered accountancy, his daughter Pooja is a B.Com gold medallist," said Nilay Savla, who is associated with the Sangh.
Diksha is the
initiation ceremony in Jainism.
In Surat, 266 kilometres from Ahmedabad, a non-resident Indian woman who worked at a multinational company after completing her MSc in Chemistry, would also take diksha at a ceremony, one of her relatives said.
"Heta Shah, 30, will become a Jain nun at a function tomorrow in Surat. She realised that this is the true path to a happy life after interacting with Jain monks in 2010," her relative Rupesh Shah said.
Rupesh Shah said the 30-year-old returned to Surat in 2014 and, having studied the Jain religion extensively, decided to take diksha.
A 24-year-old chartered accountant belonging to a Mumbai-based Jain family had embraced monkhood at a ceremony in Gandhinagar on April 20 after renouncing his family business, which was reportedly over Rs 100 crore.
A day before that,
12-year-old Bhavya Shah, son of a Surat-based diamond merchant, had become a Jain monk. "I am happy to take the path of truth shown by God," Bhavya Shah, who gave up his family to embrace monkhood, had told news agency ANI.
"I am deserting my mother and father as they taught me that this is the true path. My father and mother would also come on this path one day in future," the boy said.