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Study of Jainism
However, the struggle for perfection is long and arduous. Few reached perfection; and perhaps, as tradition would say, none would become perfect in this age. Among those who have reached omniscience and perfection are the Tirthankaras, the prophets, who have been the beacon lights of Jaina religion and culture. They have preached the truth and have helped men to cross the ocean of this worldly existence. They led men, like kindly light, to the path of spiritual progress.
Therefore, they need to be worshipped. The Jainas worship the Tirthankaras, not because they are gods, nor because they are powerful in any other way, but because they are human, and yet divine, as every one is divine, in his essential nature. The worship
Tirthankaras is to remind us that they are to be kept as ideals before us in our journey to self-realization. No favours are to be sought by means of worship, nor are they competent to bestow favours on the devotees. The main motive of worship of the Tirthankaras, therefore, is to emulate the example of the perfect beings, if possible, at least to remind us that the way to perfection lies in the way they have shown us. Even this worship of Tirthankaras, arose out of the exigencies of social and religious existence and survival and possibly as a psychological necessity. We find a few temples of Gandhiji to-day; perhaps, there would be many more. The Buddha has been deified.
Apart from the worship of Tirthankaras, we find a pantheon of gods who are worshipped and from whom favours are sought. The cult of the Yakşiņi worship and of other attendant gods may be cited as examples. This type of worship is often attended by the occult practices and the tantric and mantric ceremonialism. Dr. P. B. Desai shows that in Tamilnad Yakşini was allotted an independent status and raised to a superior position which was almost equal to that of the Jina. In some instances the worship of Yakșini appears to have superceded even that of Jina.? Padmavati, Yakșini of Parsvanatha has been elevated to the status of a superior deity with all the ceremonial worship, in Pombuccapura in Karnataka area. These forms of worship must have arisen out of the contact with other competing faiths and with the purpose of popularising the Jaina faith in the context of the social and
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