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Past and Present of a Jaina Festivel
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is towards the end of April or the beginning of May and has become an annual festival of the Jaina calendar celebrated by the communities, whether Svetāmbaras or Digambaras.
In this paper, I have tried to give a descriptive account of the Jaina festivals as I witnessed the festivals five years ago in India.
A festival presupposes the existence of two factors : first, an event which it commemorates, and, second, a regular date for the commemoration which will be the occasion for a given community to come together. In case of religious festivals, it is generally, very difficult to ascertain when exactly a festival orginated. This applies everywhere, so, for instance, in the case of Christmas : the association of Jesus' birth with the 25th December and the festival resulting therefrom did not always exist; they started in some specific area at a certain point of time.* One point should be clear : an attempt to trace the origin of our Jaina festival, in other terms assuming that it is not something eternal, should not be viewed as negative and is not meant to reduce its value or its impact. On the contrary, such an attempt is meant to underline the richness of Jaina literary tradition thanks to which we are able to follow a track along so many centruries and establish some sort of connection between past and present.
Obviously, Jaina festivals will be mostly connected with the 'Tīrtharikaras' lives. Thus for instance Mahāvīra Jayanti is meant to celebrate the 24th Jina's birth; Dipāvali is meant to commemorate his nirvana. Normally, the legendary origin of Jaina festivals is quite clear: one festival corresponds to only one legend, unlike what we see in Hinduism for instance, where it is quite common to see different Purānas giving different accounts for the origin of one and the same festival. These remarks hold true in the case of our festival too : the connection is here with and important event in the life of the first Tīrtharkara, Rşabhadeva.
Itcan be summarized as follows:Rşabhadeva had to wander for one year without food, because his religious conduct forbade him to accept all types of alms which were offered to him, until one day various dreams made prince Śreyānsakumāra aware of what should be given in such a case, namely some sugar-cane juice, so that the Jina could break his fast. The prince himself was rewarded by five marvelous gifts. The importance of this episode comes from the fact that it actually marks the birth of right
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