________________
MODERN JAINISM.
the whole day there. A Jaina fast is exceedingly strict, for they are supposed to eat nothing at all, though they may drink water. Some very devout Jaina, instead of fasting on alternate days, fast for the whole eight, and some fast more or less for forty days. Their object in fasting is to gain merit and freedom from rebirth.
108
Poso (
or Posadha (. During Pajjusana any Jaina may obtain special merit by behaving for twentyfour hours as an ascetic;* during that time he wears old clothes and fasts,
Poso.
passing his time in meditation.
Samvatsari.
Samvatsari (c). On the last day of the Jaina religious year all adult men and women must fast throughout the day. All through Pajjusana devout Jaina have been doing Padikamanum with greater zeal and attention than usual, but on this day every Jaina must do it. At the time of the ceremony all the temples are crowded; in large towns the temples have separate buildings for men and women, and the Sthanakavāsi have separate Upāsarā.
The Guru are present but they are making their own confessions privately, whilst some learned layman (or lay woman as the case may be) repeats mantra aloud in Magadhi and afterwards in Gujarati. This continues for about three hours; when the first person is tired, another takes up the repetition, and so on. The audience listen all the time in silence; they are supposed to be making private mental confession, but generally they simply listen to the mantra.
The late Rev. Douglas Thornton seems in his able Essay (Parsi, Jaina and Sikh. p. 62) to imply that this practise has fallen into desuetude, but this is not the case.
