Jain Journal 1975 01

SR No.: 520037
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication
Publication Year: 1975
Total Pages: 36
Language: English
Classification: Magazine, India_Jain Journal, & India
File Size: 2 MB

Page 13

JANUARY, 1975
instead of the above four, the following-caitya (or Jina image) caityālaya (or Jaina shrine), dharma-cakra, and śruta (speech of the Tirthankaras—scriptures).
The worship of the Five Supreme Ones is impersonal. It is the
te of qualities of these souls that is remembered and venerated rather than the embodied individuals. By adoring the Parameşthins, a worshipper suggests to his mind the qualities of the Arhat, Siddha, Acarya, Upadhyaya or Sadhu which the mind gradually begins to follow and ultimately achieves the stage attained by the Siddhas.
But the Devadhidevas are not creators of the Universe and the other Parameșthins are not their associates in the act of creation or dissolution. The Jaina Divinity, the Perfect Being, the Siddha or *he Arhat, as a type is an ideal to all the aspirants on the spiritual path. A pious Jaina does not worship his supreme deity in the hope of obtaining some worldly gains as gifts from the Devadhideva. For, the Arhat is freed from all attachments and consequent bondages of karma, whether good or bad. The worshipper simply meditates on the virtues of the Divinity so that they may mainifest in the worshipper himself. The perfect souls and souls striving towards perfection, are great souls, the salākāpuruşas as the Jainas call them.
This in essence is hero-worship or apostle-worship and as such, great souls, both ascetic and non-ascetic, came to be especially revered. Lives of great souls became favourite themes of Jaina Purānas. List of such salākāpuruṣas or mahāpuruşas include the 24 Tirthankaras +12 Cakravartins +9 Baladevas +9 Vasudevas=54 mahāpuruşas. Later texts speak of 63 salākāpuruşas by adding nine Prati-Vasudevas (enemies of Vasudevas) amongst the great souls.
Representations of these great men, except the 24 Tirthankaras, are very rare. Only in a few cases, representating incidents from the lives of Tirthankaras, we find some of these figures. Separate images of Bharata are likely to be discovered and the present writer remembers to have seen one such at Satrunjaya more than two decades ago. However two painted wooden covers of some palm-leaf manuscript at Jaisalmer are specially devoted to coloured representations of these great men in a serial order.
The Sthānanga-sūtra and other Jaina canons classify gods into four main groups, namely, the Bhavanavasis, the Vyantaras or the Vanamantaras, the Jyotiskas and the Vimanavasis. These are again