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RELIGION & CULTURE OF THE JAINS
that they are doing something pious and holy. Very often people go on pilgrimages in groups, sometimes quite large; and in the way, or at the destinations, they meet many other coreligionists belonging to different parts of the country, speaking different dialects, and having different customs and manners. For example, at Sammeda-śikhara (Mt. Pārasanātha in eastern Bihar), during the season (usually from October to February) one is sure to see a motley crowd of Jaina pilgrims, men, women and children, hailing from Bihar, Bengal, Orissa, Andhra, Madras, Mysore, Kerala, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, jostling with one another, greeting each other with the common "Jai Jinendra" (victory to lord Jina), plodding the rough steep hilly path barefoot, sparsely clad in simple clean cotton clothes, in the small hours of the night, chanting sacred hymns all the way, attaining the height of the holy mount about day-break, worshipping at some two dozen shrines dotting the different peaks, and returning to the dharmaśālās (rest-houses) at the foot in the afternoon. On the next day the pilgrims climb the mountain for worship, they keep a complete or partial fast. On other days, they worship in the temples attached to the dharmaśālās. Almost the entire time of the pilgrims passes in different religious activities, worship, meditation, listening to religious discourses, study of scriptures, chanting and recitation of hymns, eulogies, etc., and alms-giving. They live together in perfect peace and amity, and full of pious thoughts. An almost similar routine is followed at other places of Jaina pilgrimage, of course, depending upon the nature, topography, etc., of the place. In the course of these pilgrimages, the diverse pilgrims live and act as one, proving their cultural unity in diversity to be a living reality, the common object being spiritual benefit.
