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Jaina Worship and Formula of Initiation
K. B. JINDAL
The Jaina idea of worship is not an offering of flowers, incense, eatables, money, or jewels to any person or personified thing. It is not singing the praises of any person, real or imaginary. It is not asking favours or seeking protection of any person or entity. It is a constant contemplation, a ceaseless seeking of the Self, the Reality, the Life, the Supreme Self, which is lost through ignorance and which is everexistent in a latent condition in every person or being which is living.
As an aid to such contemplation and seeking, the Jainas make, consecrate, and use, when they need, models in lasting material such as hard stone, hard metal, and jewels, of a perfect man's figure in an attitude of deep contemplation, with both eyes fixed at the tip of the nose, and the body straight and controlled. It may be in a seated or standing posture. With such a model, reverently placed before them, the Jainas recite the super-human, super-celestial attributes of the Soul, which has attained Perfection, and earnestly, wish and aspire to attain such Perfection. They ask for nothing less, they beg or crave for no earthly boons. They are not suppliants for daily bread, for clothes and raiment, for children and cure of diseases, for riches or kingdoms, for victories and annexations of territories.
Worship in Jainism is an intense awakening, a self-communion, a sight of the Perfect Self, an effort to become the Perfect Self.
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