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8: Sramaņa, Vol 62, No. 1 January-March 2011
Jaina rituals in that the different parts of the ritual are auctioned off to the laity. Hence a layman can bid to perform a specific ritual to a specific set of Natural Jina Temples during this time, and if he wins he will dress up as one of the Indras, while his wife dress as Indra's wife. Specific ritual manuals, such as the Nandīśvara-dvīpa-pājā, are used in the execution of the rituals. While religious rituals often work as re-enactments of ancient deeds and actions (Eliade 1959: 50ff.), the Eight Day Festival is a synchronized ritual in the sense that humans worship Jinas simultaneously with the gods. These rituals are performed by both humans and gods in honor of beings that are considered to be completely beyond this world and any possible appreciation of these actions. Viharamāna Tirthařkaras, religious authority and soteriological implications It is widely believed by Buddhists in Theravādin countries that final liberation is virtually impossible to reach in this age and time, but the authorized closing of the soteriological door, as found in Jaina scriptural teachings, is not found in the Theravāda canon. What could have been the consequences of the doctrine of the six spokes and the establishing of our times as belonging to the fifth spoke? One could speculate that entering the fifth spoke makes our time and place in the universe less important, soteriologically speaking. While the Theravāda canon also mentions that there were Buddhas before Siddhārtha Gautama, the Jains were the only of the two to really explore this theological opportunity. The enduring significance of cosmography and the consistent geographical understanding of it as an actual map of the universe, and not as a symbolic representation-as found for instance in Tibetan Buddhism-is perhaps also related to the doctrinal restriction of our world and the importance of time in terms of soteriology. If the Major Area Bharata is in the fifth spoke, it "makes sense" to focus on other areas in time and space where salvation is possible. The doctrine that no salvation is possible at the present time could perhaps be linked to Max Weber's idea of routinization (1978:
| SR No. | 525075 |
| Book Title | Sramana 2011 01 |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Sundarshanlal Jain, Shreeprakash Pandey |
| Publisher | Parshvanath Vidhyashram Varanasi |
| Publication Year | 2011 |
| Total Pages | 172 |
| Language | Hindi |
| Classification | Magazine, India_Sramana, & India |
| File Size | 15 MB |