________________
343
enjoy all over India as skilful magicians is not very favourable to their general character: they are, in fact, not unfrequently Charlatans pretending to skill in palmistry and necromancy, dealing in empirical therapeutics, and dabbling in chemical, or rather alchemical manipulations. Some of them are less disreputably engaged in traffic, and they are often the proprietors of Maths and temples, and derive a very comfortable support from the offerings presented by the secular votaries of Jina. The Yatis, as above remarked, never officiate as priests in the temples, the ceremonies being conducted by a member of the orthodox priesthood, a Brahman, duly trained for the purpose. The Yatis are sometimes collected in Maths called by them Pośálas, and even when abroad in the world, they acknowledge a sort of obedience to the head of the Pośála of which they were once members.
The secular members of the Jaina religion, or Śrávakas, follow the usual practices of the other Hindus, but give alms only to the Yatis, and present offerings and pay homage only to the Tirthankaras; the present worship, indeed, is almost restricted to the two last of these personages, to PÁRSVANÁTH, as commonly named Páriśnáth, the twenty-third, and to VARDDHAMÁNA OF MAHAVIRA SVAMI, the twenty-fourth Tirthankara of the present age. The temples of these divinities are, in general, much handsomer buildings than those of the orthodox Hindus: they consist of a square or oblong room, large enough to admit a tolerably numerous assemblage, surrounded by an open portico:
OF THE HINDUS.
