Eighty-sixyear old Myri Sree Kalpasidha Vijayesi M S and the eighty-one year-old Sree Anandghers and nine other Jain monks reached Mattancherry on Friday to propagate their mission of peace, secularism and humanity. The monks, who set out on their mission on barefoot two years ago from Gujarat, arrived in the city early morning and headed for Mattanchery temple to take rest. The team comprises six men and five woman. The 22-year-old Sree Gyan Ratna Vijay is the youngest in the group. They have taken the strain and effort to propagate peace and secularism in the country. “We had planned the ten-year walk to spread secularism, peace and humanity among the people of India.
We have visited the representatives of different communities to spread our message,” said Jain Acharya Hardik Restne Suriji, a member of the group. Their message seems to have reached lakhs of people as they find time to meet people to spread their message. “We could talk to over 2000 people within two days to spread our messages. We are getting good number of visitors that will help spread our motto,” the monk said. The monks, dressed up in white, have restricted their walk to around 20 km a day which will start early in the morning. “We have senior monks in the group and they cannot travel beyond 30 km. The aged monks use wheelchairs whereas others walk barefoot to cover the distance,” the Jain Acharya added.
Besides, they are also spreading the message of ‘save water, save electricity and save forest’ across the country. “I took my last bath 20 years ago. Similar is the case with others. We are not using any electric items including fan, mobile phones and other things. Here, people are concerned about global warming but only ends up in talking, without doing anything,” he said. The group has plans to visit other community heads to discuss world peace. “We will draw up a plan to meet the community heads in the city within a couple of days,” said Mukesh Jain, coordinator of the monks’ programme. The team will be in the city for one week and they will take classes on secularism, peace and humanity at the Jain temple. They will move to Kozhikode next week.