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Jaina View of Life
few temples of Gandhiji today; perhaps, there would be many more. The Buddha has been deified.
Apart from the worship of Tirthańkaras, we find a pantheon of gods who are worshipped and from whom favours are sought. The cult of the Yakşiņi worship and of other attendant gods may be cited as examples. This type of worship is often attended by the occult practices and the tantric ceremonialism. Dr. P. B. Desai shows that in Tamiland Yakşiņi was allotted an independent status and raised to a superior position which was almost equal to that of the Jina. In some instances the worship of Yakşiņi appears to have superceded even that of Jina.10 Padmavati, Yakşiņi of Pārsvanātha, has been elevated to the status of a superior deity with all the ceremonial worship, in Pombuccapura in Mysore area. These forms of worship must have arisen out of the contact with other competing faiths and with the purpose of popularising the Jaina faith in the context of the social and religious competition. The cult of Jvālāmālini with its Tântric accompaniments may be mentioned as another example of this form of worship. The promulgator of this cult was, perhaps, Helācārya of Ponn According to the prevailing belief at that time, mastery over spells or Mantravidyā was considered as a qualification for superiority. The Jaina Ācāryas claimed to be master Mantravadins. Jainism had to compete with the other Hindu creeds. Yakşi form of worship must have been introduced in order to attract the common men towards Jainism, by appealing to the popular forms of worship.
However, such forms of worship are foreign to the Jaina religion. They do not form an organic and constituent features of the Jaina worship. These tendencies have teen absorbed and assimilated, in the struggle for existence and survival. We may, here, refer to the inconceivable changes the Buddhist forms of
10. Desai (P. B.): Jainism in South India (1957) p. 72. 11. Ibid, p. 74.
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