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JAINA WORSHIP AND are not only worshipped but also dusted, freed from insects and rearranged. If only this custom had prevailed with regard to all English parish registers, how many of
our records might have been saved ! Mauna- We have studied the road through which a jiva passes gyārasa.
4. by toilsome stages towards deliverance; to recall these
steps to the popular mind, the Svetāmbara (and a few Sthānakavāsī) once a year keep a solemn fast called Maunagyārasa on the eleventh day of some month, preferably the eleventh day of the bright half of Mārgaśīrşa (November-December). The worshipper fasts absolutely from food and water and meditates, as he tells his beads, on each of the five stages (Sadhu, Upadhyāya, Ācārya, Tirthankara and Siddha) of the upward path, and the next day he worships eleven sets of eleven different kinds of things connected with knowledge, such as eleven pens, eleven
pieces of paper, eleven ink-bottles, &c. Saint- The worship of the Siddha cakra, or saint-wheel, which wheel worship is kept in every temple, serves also to remind the worshipper
of the stages he must pass, for on the little silver or brass tray are five tiny figures representing the Five Great Ones (Sädhu, Upadhyāya, Ācārya, Arihanta, Siddha), but between the figures are written the names of the three jewels (Right Knowledge, Right Faith, Right Conduct) and also the word tapa, austerity, which might almost be called the key-word of the whole Jaina system. This little tray seems to bear inscribed on it the Jaina Confession of Faith, and it is regarded as of so much importance that no Svetānbara temple is complete without it, and twice a year in the spring and autumn it is worshipped by having the eight-fold pūjā done to it every day for cight days. Faļajātra, or the water pilgrimage, is celebrated with much rejoicing once during each of these eight days, when the little tray is taken to some lake near the town and ceremonially bathed before
being offered the eight-fold worship. Ys of Fasting is considered so important by the Jaina, that the abstinence.
Days of
