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RELIGIOUS CUSTOMS
263 more devout observe twelve days in every month as days of abstinence, but the less strict content themselves with fasting more or less strictly on five days.
Besides the regularly recurring holy days of the year, there Conseare special occasions of rejoicing, such as Añjanaśalākā (the an idol.
cration of consecration of a new idol), which is celebrated with great pomp, but which rarely occurs now owing to the enormous expense it entails on the donor of the idol. In the case of a Svetāmbara idol, mantras must be repeated, the glass eyes inserted, and the statue anointed with saffron, before the idol is regarded as sacred, but the expense lies in the payment, not so much for this consecration, as for the feasting and processions which accompany it.
Another rare act of Jaina worship is the bathing of The colossal figures such as that of Gomateśvara at Śrāvana Bathing
of GomaBelgolā, which takes place every twenty-five years. The teśvara. actual bathing is not unlike the ordinary Jaļa pājā, and the privilege of pouring cups of curd, milk and melted butter over the idol is put up to auction.
There is one day, Oļi or Ambela, which is the fast par Oļi. excellence of Jaina women. It occurs eight days before Caitri punema, and all women who long for a happy wedded life (and every woman in India marries) fast from specially nice food for twenty-four hours, remembering that a princess once won health for her royal husband who was a leper by fasting and worshipping the saint wheel on this day.
The ever-present influence of Hinduism is perhaps felt Hindu even more by Jaina women than by Jaina men, and it is they festivals. who insist on keeping the Hindu festival of Sitalāsātama, the festival of the goddess of small-pox, and the two feasts of Virapasali, when brothers give presents to their sisters and the sisters bless them, and of Bhāibīja, when the sisters ask their brothers to their houses. Often also girls and women fast on the Hindu holy days of Bolachotha and Molākata. It is much to be regretted that many Jaina men and women, despite all the efforts of the reformers, still
