Ancient Jaina Hymns

Author(s): Charlotte Krause
Publisher: SCIndia Oriental Institute Ujain

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ANCIENT JAINA HYMNS
and one of his layman-followers, is to be the first, and Śrī-Krsna, cousin and layman-follower of Neminātha, the past 22nd Tirthaikara of Bharata, is to be the 21st Tirthaikara of the future'.
At present, anyhow, those future Tirthankaras are assumed to be still roaming about in a state of relative imperfection, and are, therefore, little satisfactory objects of worship. The past ones, on the other hand, are supposed to have shed their human shape, and, having attained final salvation, to be no longer capable of action nor of interest in mundane affairs, and, therefore, utterly out of reach of the worshipper's imagination. Still, Tirthankara-worship forms one of the six-Āvaśyakas or daily observances of every Jaina, meant to effect internal purification. In view of this aim, all the Tirthankaras are considered equal, and full scope is left to the personal liking of the worshipper in addressing his hymn or his prayer to any one out of them, or even to a particular statue at a particular place of pilgrimage, imagined to represent the Tirthankara by “sthāpanā”. What is more natural than that the worshipper should turn his mental sight towards the distant world of Mahā-- videha, or rather of the several Mahāvišenas, where at this very moment, the twenty“Viharaniānas" are wandering about in actual human shape, and yet perfect in their supernatural knowledge and their absolute purity of thinking, feeling and acting, apparently much nearer in approach for the naïve type of bhakti than those past and future Tirthankaras, Both the Digambaras and the Svetāmbaras have lists of names of those twenty “Viharamānas?”, as well as a number of hymns address
(1) Samav., Sutra 159, st. 77 ff.
(2: For the Digambara Tradition, vide "Jaina-vêni-sangraha", Calcutta, V. s. 1982, Adhyaya 7, p. 66; for the Svetămbara one: "Sri Hindi-PancaPratikramana", Indore, A. D. 1927, p. 523.
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