Jinamanjari 1998 04 No 17

Author(s): Jinamanjari
Publisher: Canada Bramhi Jain Society Publication

Page 72

Jain Shrines of Tamilnadu
Abridged version by S.N. Prakash, Sylvania, OH.
Jinamanjari, volume 17, No.1, April 1998
The visiting of Jain shrines - Tiritha Darsan is an important functional transaction in the life of Jainas, laity or the saint. Prof. Padmanabh S. Jaini of University of California at Berkeley, observes in his The Jaina Path of Purification (pp.205-207) that "Jainas place great value upon pilgrimage to shrines; indeed, the lay [person] considers it an important goal of life...thus far focused upon the external aspects of the practice fundamentally intended as a means of withdraw from worldly occupations and dwell for a time in the peaceful presence of the holies."
..
The pilgrimage sites or shrines to which Jains go are indeed many in India, and as such, the paper concentrates on the sites in state of Tamilnadu in South India. There are several such shrines, dating back to Second and Third B.C.E. to the recent. The paper also provides some data about the Jaina population that might live in such places.
In the year 1981, Tamilnadu consisted of sixteen districts, and its Jaina population being a very small had scattered in the districts of Madras, Chengalpattu, North Arcot, South Arcot and Tanjavur. The estimated Jain population in 1981 was about 50,000. They are invariably rural dwellers, and in about one hundred villages they live. About sixty of these villages contain ancient Jain temples serving as their religious and spiritual centers.
The Tamilian Jains are mainly agriculturists or small landholders and in the recent time, they have entered other profession, as business men and civil servants. Their level of education is moderate, except in individual instances some of them have gone into higher education and accomplished a position of social status, both within their
59