________________
:: 28.
હિતેચ્છુ or Convocation, not only monks, and nuńs, but laybrothers and lay--sisters. These lay--brothren secuired a well-established rank side by side with the monastic members, and thus among the Jains there was none of the rivalry between monk and lay-- man which deprived Buddhism, in the later stige, of the support of the congragation at large. It is only in recent years that the vast and
intricate literature of Jainism Jain literature.
. has been partially exple red and there is still much to be done in the way of translation and investigation before the history of the order can be written. This ignorance of the real nature of its teaching is perhaps one cause of the contempt which the order has excited among some Western scholars. A recent writer* denies the right of existence to a faith whose principles are to 'deny God, worship man and nourish vermin.' The Jain pantheon consists of a body of dei ied
saints, Tirthankar creating a The Jain pantheon.
"ou. passage through the circuit of life' or Jina, those who have won the victory,' twenty--four of whom are assigned to the three ages, past, present and future. Of those the chief are the deified founders of the order Parsvanatha and Mahavira. The ascetic members of the order are known as Jati 'the continent' who hold no property, and never quit their dwellings except to beg for food. They carry a fan of goat's hair with which they remove every living creature from the
Prof. Hopkin.
