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88 : Sramaņa, Vol. 64, No. 4, Oct.-Dec. 2013
(bhakti), the Jains are careful to incorporate spiritual meaning to the puja so as to blur the lines between merely bhakti practice and methodological meditation. For example, when one places the flowers and sandalwood paste on the Siddhacakra, or any Jain idol, Mandala etcetera, it symbolizes the conduct and knowledge that the worshipper aspires to respectively. The meanings of the other six items offered to the Siddhacakra or any Jain Idol are the ocean of saṁsāra one must cross to reach liberation as water, the tapas of ascetic life as incense, pure consciousness as the candle, rice as a non-fertile grain as meaning the confidence that this is one's last birth, sweet food as indulgence devoid of attachment, and finally fruit as the resulting reward of ones long self-cultivation." This use of the yantra shows that the Siddhacakra can be worshipped daily by oneself with the principle right of Jain worship, the aștapūjā, and also conveys the importance of meanings of offerings attributed to the Siddhacakra or Idol worship. The Siddhacakra also plays a role in the snātra pājā, which is a reenactment of the Tīrthankara's annointment (Abhişeka) by Indra and the Gods at the climax of his birth celebration. On the picture at the top right of this document, one can see the idol is installed at the top of a miniature Mount Meru where he and a Siddhacakra are bathed in pañcāmsta or five kinds of immortality granting nectar symbolized by milk, curds, sugar, saffron, and butter. 14 The liquid symbolizing nectar washes over the idol and the Siddhacakra to then be collected out of a spout, (much like the spout of a yoni-lingama), so that worshippers can use the liquid for its magical properties. The snātra pūjā along with the kalyāṇaka pūjā, which celebrates the five sacred rites of passage in a Tīrtharkaras life, invokes the presence of all the deities of heaven as exemplar devotees of Jainism. In this context it becomes clear from the elaborate dress of the worshippers, who wear crowns and tiaras, that they are in fact identifying themselves with the gods so as to worship the Tīrthankara in the same way that he was worshipped by the gods in myth and legend. is
