________________
342
RELIGIOUS SECTS
Tirthankaras". The Bhishańa Panthis carry their aversion to external emblems still farther, and discard the use of images altogether. The Dundiyas and Samvegis are religious orders: the former affect rigorous adherence to the moral code, but disregard all set forms of prayer or praise, and all modes of external worship: the Samvegis follow the usual practices, but subsist upon alms, accepting no more than is indispensable for present wants.
The whole of the Jains are again distinguished into clerical and lay, or into Yatis and Śrávakas: the former lead a religious life, subsisting upon the alms supplied by the latter. According to the greater or less degree of sanctity to which they pretend are their seeming purity and outward precision, shewn especially in their care of animal life: they carry a brush to sweep the ground before they tread upon it; never eat nor drink in the dark, lest they should inadvertently swallow an insect, and sometimes wear a thin cloth over their mouths lest their breath should demolish some of the atomic ephemera that frolic in the sun-beams; they wear their hair cut short, strictly they should pluck it out by the roots; they profess continence and poverty, and pretend to observe frequent fasts and exercise profound abstraction. Some of them may be simple enthusiasts; many of them, however, are knaves, and the reputation which they
| The Bis Panthis are said to be, in fact, the orthodox Digambaras, of whom the Terah Panthis are a dissenting branch.
