Notes on Modern Jainism

Author(s): Mrs Sinclair Stevenson
Publisher: Oxford

Page 58

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MODERN JAINISM.
or twelve years of age. Vāniã sometimes accept money in exchange for their daughters, but this, which practically amounts to selling their own children, is much contemned by other Jaina."
Svetāmbara, Digambara and Sthānakavāsi will all intermarry if they are of the same caste. They will also intermarry with Hindus of their own caste. Curiously enough, certain Svetāmbara in Ahmedabad will intermarry, but will not dine with, Sthānakavāsi.
The birth ceremonies are practically the same as the Brāhman ones. On the sixth day after the child's birth
a clotht is spread, with paper and ink Birth.
on it, and it is believed that fate then writes on the baby's forehead. On the twelfth day the father's sister names the child, and boiled grain and molasses are distributed. The child's horoscope is deciphered by a Brāhman.
Amongst the Svetāmbara and Sthānakavāsi, if no child is born, a husband is allowed to remarry, although the
first wife be still living. If the second Co-wives.
wife bear him no child, he may marry a third and even a fourth. Although this is allowed by custom, it is not really allowed by the Jaina Scriptures,
* The offenders, however, defend themselves by saying that these
daughters had in a previous existence been their debtors, and that they had been reborn into their houses as daughters simply to give their creditors this very opportunity of recovering a
bad debt! + The piece of cloth is generally torn from the turban of the oldest man in the family, as it is believed that the child will live as long as he does.