Jaina Monuments and Places First Class Importance

SR No.: 011058
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: T N Ramchandran
Publisher: Veer Shasan Sangh Calcutta
Total Pages: 112
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 11 MB

Page 63

JAINA ICONOGRAPHY
55
Namo arahantānam, namo sildhānam, namo ūyariyānam, mamo uvajzhāyāṇam, namo loyē sabba-sāhūnam.
"Salutation to the ai hats, to the siddhas, to the üchāryas, to the upadhyāyas and to all the sādhus of the world".
With the above invocation repeated millions of times every day the Jainas bow with hands folded in anjali (worship) in the four cardinal directions, east, south, west and north. The main import of such a prayer is three-fold :
(1) Worship is given to all human souls worthy of it, in whatever clime they may be, (2) worship is impersonal. It is the aggregate of the qualities that is worshipped rather than any individual, (3) The arhat, "the living embodiment of the highest goal of Jainism", is mentioned first and then the siddha who is disembodied and consequently cannot be appealed to or approached by humanity. As the siddha is without body the Jainas feel that they can never pray to the siddha alone and preeminently. A siddha has, infinite attributes of which 8 are generally mentioned and these thic Jainas recite, telling their beads. By this they do not worship or salute the siddha but tell their beads "only with the object of stirring up their spiritual ambition and in order to remind themselves of the qualities a siddha must possess, in the hope that some day they loo inay reach their desired goal, and rest in perfect bliss in the state of nicāna, doing nothing for ever and ever." Chanting the pañchanamaskāra-mantra 108 times and telling the beads purify the soul.
The Jainas include Aum (Om) also in their incantation and interpret it as consisting of the following five sounds, standing for the five supreme ones (Pañcha-paramēshțhins): a, a, a, ir and m; a stands for arhat; a stands for aśarīra, i,e., "diseinbodiedl", i.e., siddha; ā stands for acharya ; u stands for upādhyāya ; and m stands for muni, i.e., saint, who is the sādhu,
Images and sculptures containing figures of these five