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The daily puja (worship) and prakshala (bathing) of the pratibimbas (statues of the Holy Tirthamkaras are the source of much good; they tend to strengthen one's faith at the same time as they enable merit to be acquired by the withdrawal of the mind from the attachments and concerns of the world and by its being directed to the true side of Life. The whole scheme of worship in Jainism is that from the moment one sets one's foot in the temple till the time of one's departure from it, one should be constantly accumulating merit and the increase of piety and Dh irma. The objection: how can an inanimate object like an image of metal, or stone, be the cause of so much good? is met by the paraole of the dead harlot propounded in the Parasva Purana. The deceased courtesan, in the parable, was a woman of remarkable beauty and of great personal charms, and as her body lay on the ground three living beings, a sadhu, a licentious libertine and a jackal, gathered round it. Of these, the sadhu (saint) was filled with the spirit of vairagya renunciation) at the sight of her matchless beauty, and with ot for her departed spirit, thinking that if her life had been as virtus and good as her beauty was faultless, she was certain to 0 in heaven and nirvana. The libertine, on the other hand, feastelas eves on the voluptuous contour of the prostrate figure before him, labandoned himself to the agreeable hallucinations of pleasu in vas calculated to afford in life. As for the jackal, he only prowed about, waiting for the departure of the other two to devour the com. The effect of their diverse mental states on the three individuas stat the sathu went to heaven after death, the libertine descend-d to hell, but the jackal remained where he was before, that is to t was reborn among the beasts of prey in his next incarnatio rinciple to be deduced from the parable is that internal menta are occasioned by external objects and things, and become the ning factors.of the conditions of future life.
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Jain Education International
IMMORTALITY AND JOY
And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time: "Footprints that perhaps another, Sailing o'er life's solemn mainA forlorn and ship-wrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again.
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