Tapas, austerity, is not an accessory to Jain practice but one of its two engines — samvara stops new karma arriving, nirjara sheds what is already there, and fasting is the principal method of nirjara. The forms are graded and specific. Ayambil is one meal a day of a single bland boiled grain with no oil, salt, sugar, milk, curd, ghee, green vegetable or fruit; the Ayambil Oli is nine consecutive days of it, kept twice a year in Chaitra and Ashwin. Upvas is complete abstention with boiled water permitted; attham is three consecutive days; the aththai of eight days is common during Paryushana. Varshitap is thirteen months of alternate-day fasting, broken traditionally with sugarcane juice on Akshaya Tritiya in memory of Rishabhanatha's first alms. Longer fasts of thirty, sixty and even more days occur and are publicly celebrated with processions. Women fast substantially more than men across all forms, a pattern documented by scholars including Josephine Reynell and Anne Vallely, who read it as one of the few arenas of religious authority genuinely available to Jain laywomen.