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Jaina Community-A Social Survey
Pañchama and Bogāra in Mahārāshtra and Karnātaka; and the Upādhyāya, Vaiśya, Kshatriya and Naināra in South India.
9. INTER-RELATIONS OF CASTES As the Jaina community is divided into a large number of castes and sub-castes it is necessary to know the nature of relations among these castes especially with reference to inter-dining and inter-marriage. With this aim in view the question No.9 was asked and from the replies it appears that at present practically all Jaina castes can dine with all members of the Jaina community. Even though this freedom is given it is not regularly availed of. In general the sub-castes or castes have dining relations among themselves only. Thus the Jaisavālas and Khandelavalas among the Digambaras state that they practically do not dine with the other castes. Similarly, the Mesari Bhāvasarās and Bisa Agravālas among the Svetämbaras do not dine with even other castes of Jainas and the Levā Patīdāras have recently started to dine with other Baniya Jaina castes. This might be due to the fact that the marital relations are necessarily confined to members of their castes only. But there is a marked tendency to extend the dining relations to all Jainas. In this respect the Digambaras seem to be more conservative than the Svetāmbaras. Among the Digambaras the Hummada and Khandelavāla castes observed that they maintain dining relations with the Digambara Jainas and the Budhelanvāyī caste states that it has no objection to dine with the Visā Jainas. On the contrary, many Śvetām bara Jaina castes assert that they not only dine with all Jainas but also with all Baniyā castes some of which are not followers of Jainism. Further, a new development is seen in both the main sections of the Jainas. Formerly many castes were not dining with some castes mainly for the reason that the latter were observing the practice of widow-remarriage. Nowadays this is not followed. Thus the Nevīs among the Digambaras now dine with the Saitavālas and excepting some very few persons all the Srimālis among the Śvetāmbaras dine with the members of Patidāra and Bhāvasāra castes.
As regards the marital relations between the several castes and sub-castes of the Jainas it may be pointed out that in gerneral there is no inter-marriage between the persons belonging to different castes or to different sub-castes of the same caste. The
