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Seeing Holy life in Practice
A personal experience
A sitting posture symbolizes
meditation and repentance;
standing he accepts completely what comes to him, without resistance
In 2004 I was already living in Jaipur, Rajasthan, but until then most of my knowledge came from books and from discussions with learned Jains during earlier travels through India. I thought it was time to step outside the limits of theory alone, and take a look around the country. First I visited a temple in Amber City (i.e. Amer), which is much older than Jaipur but is now a suburb of this city of millions. Apart from their beautiful and refined architecture Jain temples are characterized, in their interior by an abundance of simple but perfect statues of their spiritual teachers, the 24 Tīrthamkaras. An outsider would hardly distinguish them from Buddha statues - but they are totally nude, and often they have a fourleaved flower on their heart, signifying their pureness, having left behind all four types of karma (see chapter 4). Most statues in Rajasthan are made of pure white and shining
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