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196: JAINS TODAY IN THE WORLD done by devotees during their "pājā" are not various marks of worship towards the Tīrthankara but demonstrations of their detachment from these objects.
In the same way, the many fasts and austerities that Jains undergo are not penances prescribed by a religious authority to punish them for their sins but means proposed to them by sacred scriptures to cleanse their soul of bad “karma” and to subdue world attractiveness.
We have also seen, in the previous chapters, numerous prohibitions related to Jain non-violence (ahiṁsā). To those who know their meanings, like not to eat meat and fish, not to drink wine and alcohol, not to wear natural leather or silk, not to pursue various professional activities, etc. these are concrete actions to avoid violence (hiṁsā).
2. Their religious drawings
We will speak now of two specific kinds of drawings used by the Jain laity as well as the ascetics, although the latter use them more frequently. They concern "mandala" and "yantra”.
A "mandala" is a figure that contains one or several subjects with drawings, diagrams, and colours. It serves as support for meditation. Jains have completed so important number and artistic ones that some authors label them “The mandala heralds”. They are precursors in doing them. The figures can be simple, with or without a Tirthankara inside, or complex, with manifold pictures.
The most common “mandala" is one that the devotee draws himself during his "pājā" in a temple, with some grains of rice, on a little table. We have given already its description. Its aim is to recall four kinds of worldly existence, the "three jewels" of Jainism and the necessary efforts to do to attain liberation. It symbolizes also devotees's wish to never be born again in this world.
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