Jains in India and Abroad

Author(s): Prakash C Jain
Publisher: International Summer School for Jain Studies

Page 30

roti (bread) and/or rice. They also consume most vegetables and fruits available locally. They also eat pulses like ahrar, moong, urad, chana, moth, massor, rajma, etc. They regularly consume milk and milk-products like curd, ghee, butter, paneer. Alcoholic drinks are prohibited by the community. Smoking of cigarettes, bidis and chewing tobacco, betel leaf, betel nuts, cardamom and cloves was quite common amongst the males until a generation ago, but now the consumption of tobacco products is on the decline.
Jains generally celebrate all the major Hindu festivals such as Rakshbandhan, Dashahra, Deepawali, and Holi. Different reasons are given for celebrating them. Thus Deepawali, for example, is celebrated by the Jains not so much because that day Lord Rama returned to Ayodhya after the victory over the Lanka king Ravana, but because Tirthankara Mahavira attained Nirvana on the same day. The birthday of Lord Mahavira (Mahavira Jayanti) has been a public holiday in India since the late British days for which the Jains had to indulge in some politics.
Other important festivals celebrated by Jains are Paryushan Parva/Das Lakshan (last eight/ten days of Bhadra) and Ashthanika (the last eight days of Kartika). These are regarded very auspicious by the Jains. During these days the atmosphere in most Jains families is charged with high spirituality and almost all the Jains make it a point to go to the temples for worship, and recite or listen to the scriptures. In many temples or Sthanakas Pandits are also engaged to deliver religious discourses in the evenings. At the conclusion of Paryushan/Das Lakshan, Pratikraman or Kshamavani ceremony is held in which repentance of faults and forgiveness is asked for and given to all. Some Jains do the same thing through newspaper advertisements, and/or through sending hand-written or printed letters by post, or through emails.
Jains have a vast network of pilgrimage places (Teerth Kshetras) all over India. These can broadly be classified into four categories. “The Kalyanaka Kshetras, associated with the birth and other memorable events in the life of the Tirthankaras; the Siddha Kshetras, where the Tirthankaras or other saints attained Nirvana; the Attishaya Kshetras, associated with some miracle or myth; and Kala Kshetras, reputed
16 | Jains in India and Abroad