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JAINA WORSHIP.
93
These famous temples are beautifully situated on rising ground overlooking a little valley, across which a pleasant stream meanders through meadows dotted with palms.
There are four main temples, arranged in the form of a cross, and their carved white marble domes and pillars are a miracle of fretted loveliness.
In the first temple we entered, that of the Kārigara, or artificers, we were interested to notice before the shrine of Pārs'vanātha blackened lamps and other obvious signs of the Hindu Feast of Lamps, or Divāli.* We were told, however, that at the last Jaina conference objection was raised to participation in a festival which led to the destuction of so much insect life.
Throughout all four temples we saw far more evidence of the influence of Hinduism than in the Digambara temple. In the entrance was a Mātā,t together with a large image of Hanumāna killing Rāvana, and beside it an image of Bhairava.
* Dr. Burgess, loc. cit., however, gives as one of the differences
between the sects that "the Digambaras bathe and worship their images during the night, but the S'vetāmbaras do not even light lamps in their teniples, niuch less do they bathe or worship the images, lest in so doing they might thereby kill, or indirectly cause the death of, any living thing, for to do so during the night
they regard as a great sin.” Not only on Mount A'bu did we see traces of the festival lamps that
had been burning the previous night, but at Ahmedabad in Hatthisin: ha's teniple (S'vetāmbara ) an unprotected light burns
all night before the figure of Dharmanātha. + A type of Hindu goddess.
| SR No. | 007307 |
| Book Title | Notes on Modern Jainism |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Mrs Sinclair Stevenson |
| Publisher | Oxford |
| Publication Year | 1910 |
| Total Pages | 142 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 10 MB |