Portrait of Jain Religion

Author(s): Narendra Jain
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

Page 41

Jains were the earliest to build temples and to instal idols representing the Tirthankaras. Temple worship is the logical result of the Jain contemplation of Godhood. The image installed in the temple being the representation of Omnicient Arihant or Tirthankar. It is in the shape of a man engaged in yogic contemplation either sitting or standing. Such a representation of omniscient human personality naturally avoids any abnormal or mythic ideas.
Vedic religion of early Aryans was not associated with temple worship. It came to be adopted by later puranic Hinduism, particularly in South India. Jain sacred literature describes Ashtapad temple built in Mt. Kailash in the Himalayas to mark the nirvana of the first and the founder Tirthankar of Jain religion, namely Rishabhnath. The temple was built by his son Emperor Bharat, in whose name India came to be called Bharat from ancient times. As narrated in an inscription found on the rock in Hathikumpha Hill, Emperor Kharvella built a Jain temple during the third century B.C. installing the idol of Lord Rishabhnath. Prof. Padmanabha Jaini observes, "We must understand Jain image worship as being of a meditational nature. The Jina is seen as an ideal, a certain mode of soul, a fate attainable by all living beings. Through personification of that ideal state in stone or marble, the Jains create a meditative support, as it were, a reminder of the lofty goal and the possibility of its attainment.”
Even after the split of the Jain society into two sects-sky-clad Digambars and white-robed Shwetambars, the practice of temple worship was kept up, but with a change in the form of the idols of Tirthankars. In Digambar temples, the idols are in sky-clad form. In Shwetambar temples, they are adorned with gold, silver and other ornaments as well as decorated eyelids signifying grandeur of the omniscient Lord and reverential awe of the worshipper who perceives them as kings of the universe.
Notwithstanding such differing practices, both the sects emphasize the aspect of total renunciation from worldly life as a role model
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A Portrait of Jain Religion