Ancient Jaina Hymns

Author(s): Charlotte Krause
Publisher: Oriental Institute

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ANCIENT JAINA HYMNS and one of his layman-followers, is to be the first, and Sri-Krsna, cousin and layman-follower of Neminātha, the past 22nd Tirthankara of Bharata, is to be the 21st Tirthankara of the future'.
At present, anyhow, those future Tīrthankaras 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-Āvasyakas 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 Tirthaikara by "sthāpanā”. What is more natural than that the worshipper should turn his mental sight towards the distant world of Mahāvideha, or rather of the several Mahāvidenas, where at this very moment, the twenty"Viharamāņas" 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 "Vikaramānas?”, as well as a number of hymns address
(1) Samav., Sūtra 159, st. 77 ff.
(2) for the Digambara Tradition, vide "Jaina-vani-sangraha", Calcutta, V. S. 1982, Adhyâya 7, p. 66; for the Švetāmbara one: "Sri Hindi-PañcaPratikramaņa", Indore, A. D. 1927, p. 523.
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