What is a Mendicant?
A mendicant is someone who relies on charity and goodwill for survival, soliciting donations of money, food, and supplies from generous members of the public. Basically, a mendicant is a beggar, except that the word “mendicant” does not have the negative associations linked with begging, and mendicants are usually members of religious orders or religious ascetics who have taken a vow of poverty. This is in sharp contrast with true beggars, who generally do not choose a life of poverty for themselves. The mendicant tradition in many religions is ancient. Mendicants exist in most religions for several reasons. The first is that many religions have a tradition of charity and almsgiving, and therefore, devout individuals need to have subjects for their charity. Many religions also reserve a special place for ascetics who devote their lives to religious contemplation, and pious individuals may receive special praise for supporting members of their own religion who have taken vows of poverty
The term mendicant refers to begging or relying on charitable donations, and is most widely used for religious followers or ascetics who rely exclusively on charity to survive. Mendicant orders or followers do not own property, either individually or collectively, and have taken a vow of poverty, in order that all their time and energy could be expended on preaching their religion or way of life and serving the poor. Some mendicants include Catholic mendicant orders, Hindu ascetics, some dervishes of Sufi Islam, and monastic schools of Buddhism where the mendicant tradition still survives, particularly in many Southeast Asian countries where Theravada Buddhism is practised. Buddhist Pali scriptures use the term bhikku for mendicant. By definition: mendicant is an adjective which means habitually engaged in begging, of a religious order originally dependent on alms,or begging for and living on money given by strangers. It is also a noun which means a beggar especially somebody who begs
