Introduction to Jainism and its Culture

SR No.: 001605
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Balbhadra Jain
Publisher: Kundkund Gyanpith Indore
Publication Year: 2002
Total Pages: 334
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Religion, & Culture
File Size: 21 MB

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O Lord! You are not concerned with your worship and neither it pleases you because you are detached. Aspersions do not make you angry because you have won over aversion. Even then, thinking about your pious virtues saves humans from sins and imparts piety to them.
In fact, the purpose of idol worship in Jainism is to worship the ideals of the object of worship. It is not worship of a lifeless stone. It is also devoid of any act of beseeching for fulfillment of mundane desires. Jainism does not believe that God resides in the idol. Instead, it lays stress on installation of God in the feelings or sentiments of the devotee with the help of worship of the image. If God is installed in the sentiments all desires end. No religion other than Jainism has presented this ideal of image worship.
According to Jain literature Jainism has a long history of image making, image-worship, and symbolic worship. Bharat Cakravarti (the sovereign of six continents according to Jain hagiography), the eldest son of Rsabhadeva, the first Tirthaikara, was the first in human history to make Jain temples and images. There are numerous instances of sculpting of images in the pre-history, the last link being the Vodva stupa in Mathura made by Kuberadevi during the period of Tirthaikara Parávanātha (800 BC). In a later period King Karkaņda got Parývanātha images in the cave temples of Dhārāśiva. Finding of the images of Rşabhadeva in the archaeological excavations of Mohan-jo-daro and Harappa pushes back the history of Jain iconography five thousand years back. In the opinion of archaeologists the Jain idol found in Lohānīpura (Patna) is the oldest available Indian idol. It is in the Patna museum collection at present. This is believed to be of the Maurya period.
Scholars opine that Jains started the making of idols of deities. The makers of Siva idols emulated this. The making of the idols of Vişņu, the Buddha and other deities came much later in the history. It is surprising that other religions accepted the Jain concept of idol making but did not follow their ideal of worship of virtues.
In world history idol worship came first and then started its opposition. In India when idol-worship started being misused and fanatics started desecrating idols during the Islamic period, there came
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