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Jaiņa Community- A Social Survey ritual. This marked tendency of Śvetāṁbára Jainas to observe the Hindu ritual at the time of marriage ceremony and of Digambaras to observe the Jaina ritual for the same purpose is, it is interest. ing to note, found in different parts of India. From the replies it will be seen that among the Svetāmbaras residing in South India, Mahārāshtra, Karnātaka and Northern India, all are reported to have married according to the Hindu ritual and among the 16 and 27 Śvetām baras residing in the Bombay City and Gujarātha respectively, as many as 13 from Bombay City and 25 from Gujarātha are married according to the Hindu ritual. Similarly, among the Digambaras, all 13 from South India, 23 out of 25 from Mahā. rāshtra and Karnātaka, 16 out of 17 from Central India, 9 out of 10 from Northern India, 3 out of 5 from Bombay City, and 5 out of 10 from Gujarātha are married according to the Jaina ritual. This obvious adherence of Śvetāmbaras to the Hindu ritual and of the Digambaras to the Jaina ritual all over India seems probably due to the fact that the proportion of keeping marital relations with the Hindus appears to be undoubtedly more among Svetāmbaras than what it is among Digambaras because, as it has been already noted, many important Svetāmbara castes, as compared with the Digambara castes, have their counterparts among the Hindus and marital relations were maintained formerly among the Jaina Śvetāmbara and Hindu members of a caste.27
36. JAINA LANGUAGE The minority communities in India like Muslim, Sikh, Parsee, Jew and others either individually have a separate language of their own or a majority of members of each community can speak a common language. With a view to know whether the Jaina community, an ancient minority community in India, has got a language of its own which is used by a majority of its members even now, the question number 38 was asked and from the replies it will be seen that the Jaina community cannot claim any language as its own. The medium of expression of Jainas is the language of the locality where they reside and as the Jainas are spread all over India for the last so many centuries, they are found speaking the language of the province concerned. Thus the language of the Jainas in North India is Hindi, in Gujarātha it is Gujarāthi, in Mahārāshțra it is Marātni, in Karnātaka it is Kannada, and in South India it is either Tulu, Telugu or Tāmil.
