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Tat Tvan Asi
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religious competition. The cult of Jwalamalini with its Tantric accompaniments may be mentioned as another example of this form of worship. The promulgator of this cult was, perhaps, Hēlacarya of Ponnur. According to the prevailing belief at that time, mastery over spells or Mantravidya was considered as a qualification for superiority. The Jaina Acaryas claimed to be master Mantravadins.8 Jainism had to compete with the other Hindu creeds. Yakși form of worship must have been introduced in order to attract the common men towards Jainism, by appealing to the popular forms of worship.
However, such forms of worship are foreign to the Jaina religion. They do not form an organic and constituent features of the Jaina worship. These tendencies have been absorbed and assimilated, in the struggle for existence and survival We may, here, refer to the inconceivable changes the Buddhist forms of worship have undergone in the various countries of the world, like the Tantric forms of worship in Tibetan Lamaism.
We have still soe gods in Jaina cosmogony. They are the devas, the gods living in heavens like the Bhavanavasi, Vyantaravasi, Jyotiska and Kalpavdsi. But they are a part of the Samsara and not really gods in the sense of superior divine beings. They are just more fortunate beings than men because of their accumulated good karma They enjoy better empirical existence than men. But we, humans, can pride ourselves in that the 'gods' in these worlds cannot reach mokșa unless they are reborn as human beings The gods are not objects or worship.
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