________________
Maunagyarasa.
Saintwheel worship.
Days of absti
nence.
262
JAINA WORSHIP AND
are not only worshipped but also dusted, freed from insects and rearranged. If only this custom had prevailed with regard to all English parish registers, how many of our records might have been saved!
We have studied the road through which a jīva passes by toilsome stages towards deliverance; to recall these steps to the popular mind, the Svetambara (and a few Sthanakavāsi) once a year keep a solemn fast called Maunagyārasa on the eleventh day of some month, preferably the eleventh day of the bright half of Mārgaśīrşa (November-December). The worshipper fasts absolutely from food and water and meditates, as he tells his beads, on each of the five stages (Sādhu, Upadhyāya, Āċārya, Tirthankara and Siddha) of the upward path, and the next day he worships eleven sets of eleven different kinds of things connected with knowledge, such as eleven pens, eleven pieces of paper, eleven ink-bottles, &c.
The worship of the Siddha cakra, or saint-wheel, which is kept in every temple, serves also to remind the worshipper of the stages he must pass, for on the little silver or brass tray are five tiny figures representing the Five Great Ones (Sādhu, Upadhyāya, Āċārya, Arihanta, Siddha), but between the figures are written the names of the three jewels (Right Knowledge, Right Faith, Right Conduct) and also the word tapa, austerity, which might almost be called the key-word of the whole Jaina system. This little tray seems to bear inscribed on it the Jaina Confession of Faith, and it is regarded as of so much importance that no Svetambara temple is complete without it, and twice a year in the spring and autumn it is worshipped by having the eight-fold pūjā done to it every day for eight days. Falajatra, or the water pilgrimage, is celebrated with much rejoicing once during each of these eight days, when the little tray is taken to some lake near the town and ceremonially bathed before being offered the eight-fold worship.
Fasting is considered so important by the Jaina, that the
