ABSTRACT
In time, the Lon≥kå Gaccha was subjected to scrutiny by its own members. A merchant called Lavaj⁄ (c.1609-59), who was an uncle of the great Surat magnate V⁄rj⁄ Vora, broke away from the Lon≥kå Gaccha in about the third decade of the seventeenth century, as did around the same time another merchant, Dharmasim˛ha (1599-1671), who had connections with the city of Jamnagar.15 As with Lon≥kå, there is some dubiety about whether Lavaj⁄ took formal ascetic initiation,16 but there is no doubt that the substance of his criticism of the Lon≥kå Gaccha was directed to its general laxity and he consequently expressed a wish to revert to the model of monastic behaviour found in the Da¬avaikålika which did not, of course, include image worship.
