Notes on Modern Jainism

SR No.: 007307
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

Page 109

JAINA WORSHIP.
97
The cheapest service, the Sanatana Pujā ( you) costs the worshipper 54 annas, the next cheapest, the Pañcakalyana Pujā (чazy ) costs 54 rupees.
The offering is transferred from one tray to another very much as it was in the Digambara temple.
As no outside worshippers happened to be present, nor was there, as in the Digambara temple, any committee to provide funds for a daily offering, the worship on this particular morning was very simple.
The pujari, whose mouth and head had been covered all the time he was cleansing the images, etc., lighted the five-fold lamp ( A'rati ) filled with ghi, on the lower tray of which camphor was also burnt; a second pujari beat a kettledrum in the court, another man struck a bell outside the shrine, a fourth sounded a gong inside it, and the principal pujari himself rang a hand-bell with his left hand, whilst with his right he slowly waved the lamp in front of the image.
Replacing that, he picked up a single-light lamp (Mangaladipa nay) filled with ghi, with camphor also burning on its stand, and whilst he waved this, he continued to ring the hand-bell, the other pujaris likewise continuing con amore to beat the drum, strike the bell and sound the gong, the echoes reverberating amidst the beautiful arches. Finally above the din the pujari loudly shouted" Bas!" (enough), and the service was at an end.
A noticeable point about the ceremony was that not one of the men taking part in it was a Jaina, or professed to believe in the service he was performing.
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