8-Year-Old Golden Spoon Indian Girl Who Became a Monk, Giving Up 76 Billion Won Inheritance...

Famous for Faith Since Childhood
Parents: "Daughter Always Aspires to Become a Monk"

A story about an 8-year-old Indian girl who gave up an inheritance worth millions of dollars to become a Jain monk has attracted attention.

On the 19th (local time), according to the US online media Insider and AFP, Devanshi Sangvi, an 8-year-old girl living in Surat, a city in western India, recently completed a four-day 'diksha.' Diksha is a kind of renunciation ceremony in Jainism, a tradition of monasticism, where an individual gives up all personal possessions and heads to a temple.

An 8-year-old girl, Devanshi Sangvi, renounced her inheritance worth hundreds of billions and became a Jain monk. The photo is unrelated to the article content. [Image source=AFP Yonhap News]

The girl cut all her hair, discarded her fancy clothes, and performed rituals such as riding in an elephant-drawn carriage. With this, Sangvi became one of the youngest monks to have undergone diksha.

The reason this girl is receiving attention is that she was the heiress of the jewelry company 'Sangvi & Sons,' which dominates the global gem trade. According to the Indian credit rating agency ICRA, this company, established in 1981, is currently estimated to have a net worth of 5 billion rupees (approximately 76 billion KRW).

The media reported that Sangvi's decision to give up her inheritance worth hundreds of billions of won and become a monk was driven by deep faith. A local resident who watched the diksha told AFP in an interview, "Sangvi has been known among the devotees in the Surat area as a devout child since she was young," adding, "She has never watched TV or movies, nor gone to shopping malls."

Sangvi's parents revealed to the local media on the day that Sangvi had always aspired to become a monk. They are also said to be followers of Jainism.

Jainism has about 4 million followers in India and, like Buddhism, is a traditional Indian religion derived from Brahmanism around the 6th century BCE. It is characterized by asceticism and austerity, non-possession and non-violence, and pacifism.