The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 1

Jain Religion

[Bibliography: The Jainas, by Dr. J.G. BÜhler and J. Burgess, London, 1903; The Religions of India, Professor E.W. Hopkins; The Religions of India, Professor A. Barth; Punjab Census Report (1891), Sir E.D. Maclagan; article on Jainism in Dr. Hastings’ Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics.]

List of Paragraphs

1. Numbers and distribution.
2. The Jain religion. Its connection with Buddhism.
3. The Jain tenets. The Tirthakars.
4. The transmigration of souls.
5. Strict rules against taking life.
6. Jain sects.
7. Jain ascetics.
8. Jain subcastes of Banias.
9. Rules and customs of the laity.
10. Connection with Hinduism.
11. Temple and car festival.
12. Images of the Tirthakārs.
13. Religious observances.
14. Tenderness for animal life.
15. Social condition of the Jains.

1. Numbers and distribution.

Jain.—The total number of Jains in the Central Provinces in 1911 was 71,000 persons. They nearly all belong to the Bania caste, and are engaged in moneylending and trade like other Banias. They reside principally in the Vindhyan Districts, Saugor, Damoh and Jubbulpore, and in the principal towns of the Nāgpur country and Berār.

2. The Jain religion. Its connection with Buddhism.

The Jain tenets present marked features of resemblance to Buddhism, and it was for some time held that Jainism was merely a later offshoot from that religion. The more generally accepted view now, however, is that the Jīna or prophet of the Jains was a real historical personage, who lived in the sixth century B.C., being a contemporary of Gautama, the Buddha. Vardhamāna, as he was commonly called, is said to have been the younger son of a small chieftain in the province of Videha or Tirhūt. Like Sakya-Muni the Buddha or enlightened, Vardhamāna became an ascetic, and after twelve years of a wandering life he appeared as a prophet, proclaiming a modification of the doctrine of his own teacher Pārsva or Pārasnāth. From this time he was known as Mahāvīra, the great hero, the same name which in its familiar form of Mahābīr is applied to the god Hanumān. The title of Jīna or victorious, from which the Jains take their name, was subsequently conferred on him, his sect at its first institution being called Nirgrantha or ascetic. There are very close resemblances in the traditions concerning the lives of Vardhamāna and Gautama or Buddha. Both were of royal birth; the same names recur among their relatives and disciples; and they lived and preached in the same part of the country, Bihār and Tirhūt.1 Vardhamāna is said to have died during Buddha’s lifetime, the date of the latter’s death being about 480 B.C.2 Their doctrines also, with some important differences, present, on the whole, a close resemblance. Like the Buddhists, the Jains claim to have been patronised by the Maurya princes. While Asoka was mainly instrumental in the propagation of Buddhism over India, his grandfather Chandragupta is stated to have been a Jain, and his grandson Sampadi also figures in Jain tradition. A district which is a holy land for one is almost always a holy land for the other, and their sacred places adjoin each other in Bihār, in the peninsula of Gujarāt, on Mount Abu in Rājputāna and elsewhere.3 The earliest of the Jain books belongs to the sixth century A.D., the existence of the Nirgrantha sect in Buddha’s lifetime being proved by the Cingalese books of the Buddhists, and by references to it in the inscriptions of Asoka and others.4 While then M. Barth’s theory that Jainism was simply a later sect of Buddhism has been discarded by subsequent scholars, it seems likely that several of the details of Vardhamāna’s life now recorded in the Jain books are not really authentic, but were taken from that of Buddha with necessary alterations, when the true facts about their own prophet had been irrevocably lost.

Jain temples at Muktagiri, Betul

3. The Jain tenets. The Tirthakars.

Like the Buddhists, the Jains recognise no creator of the world, and suppose it to have existed from eternity. Similarly, they had originally no real god, but the Jīna or victor, like the Buddha or Enlightened One, was held to have been an ordinary mortal man, who by his own power had attained to omniscience and freedom, and out of pity for suffering mankind preached and declared the way of salvation which he had found.5 This doctrine, however, was too abstruse for the people, and in both cases the prophet himself gradually came to be deified. Further, in order perhaps to furnish objects of worship less distinctively human and to whom a larger share of the attributes of deity could be imputed, in both religions a succession of mythical predecessors of the prophet was gradually brought into existence. The Buddhists recognise twenty-five Buddhas or divine prophets, who appeared at long epochs of time and taught the same system one after another; and the Jains have twenty-four Tirthakārs or Tirthānkars, who similarly taught their religion. Of these only Vardhamāna, its real founder, who was the twenty-fourth, and possibly Pārsva or Pārasnāth, the twenty-third and the founder’s preceptor, are or may be historical. The other twenty-two Tirthakārs are purely mythical. The first, Rishaba, was born more than 100 billion years ago, as the son of a king of Ajodhya; he lived more than 8 million years, and was 500 bow-lengths in height. He therefore is as superhuman as any god, and his date takes us back almost to eternity. The others succeeded each other at shorter intervals of time, and show a progressive decline in stature and length of life. The images of the Tirthakārs are worshipped in the Jain temples like those of the Buddhas in Buddhist temples. As with Buddhism also, the main feature of Jain belief is the transmigration of souls, and each successive incarnation depends on the sum of good and bad actions or karman in the previous life. They hold also the primitive animistic doctrine that souls exist not only in animals and plants but in stones, lumps of earth, drops of water, fire and wind, and the human soul may pass even into these if its sins condemn it to such a fate.6

4. The transmigration of souls.

The aim which Jainism, like Buddhism, sets before its disciples is the escape from the endless round of successive existences, known as Samsāra, through the extinction of the karman or sum of actions. This is attained by complete subjection of the passions and destruction of all desires and appetites of the body and mind, that is, by the most rigid asceticism, as well as by observing all the moral rules prescribed by the religion. It was the Jīna or prophet who showed this way of escape, and hence he is called Tirthakār or ‘The Finder of the Ford,’ through the ocean of existence.7 But Jainism differs from Buddhism in that it holds that the soul, when finally emancipated, reaches a heaven and there continues for ever a separate intellectual existence, and is not absorbed into Nirvāna or a state of blessed nothingness.

5. Strict rules against taking life.

The moral precepts of the Jains are of the same type as those of Buddhism and Vaishnavite Hinduism, but of an excessive rigidity, at any rate in the case of the Yatis or Jatis, the ascetics. They promise not to hurt, not to speak untruths, to appropriate nothing to themselves without permission, to preserve chastity and to practise self-sacrifice. But these simple rules are extraordinarily expanded on the part of the Jains. Thus, concerning the oath not to hurt, on which the Jains lay most emphasis: it prohibits not only the intentional killing or injuring of living beings, plants or the souls existing in dead matter, but requires also the utmost carefulness in the whole manner of life, and a watchfulness also over all movements and functions of the body by which anything living might be hurt. It demands, finally, strict watch over the heart and tongue, and the avoidance of all thoughts and words which might lead to disputes and quarrels, and thereby do harm. In like manner the rule of sacrifice requires not only that the ascetic should have no houses or possessions, but he must also acquire a complete unconcern towards agreeable or disagreeable impressions, and destroy all feelings of attachment to anything living or dead.8 Similarly, death by voluntary starvation is prescribed for those ascetics who have reached the Kewalin or brightest stage of knowledge, as the means of entering their heaven. Owing to the late date of the Jain scriptures, any or all of its doctrines may have been adopted from Buddhism between the commencement of the two religions and the time when they were compiled. The Jains did not definitely abolish caste, and hence escaped the persecution to which Buddhism was subjected during the period of its decline from the fifth or sixth century A.D. On account of this trouble many Buddhists became Jains, and hence a further fusion of the doctrines of the rival sects may have ensued. The Digambara sect of Jains agree with the Buddhists in holding that women cannot attain Nirvāna or heaven, while the Swetambara sect say that they can, and also admit women as nuns into the ascetic order. The Jain scripture, the Yogashāstra, speaks of women as the lamps that burn on the road that leads to the gates of hell.

6. Jain sects.

The Jains are divided into the above two principal sects, the Digambara and the Swetambara. The Digambara are the more numerous and the stricter sect. According to their tenets death by voluntary starvation is necessary for ascetics who would attain heaven, though of course the rule is not now observed. The name Digambara signifies sky-clad, and Swetambara white-clad. Formerly the Digambara ascetics went naked, and were the gymnosophists of the Greek writers, but now they take off their clothes, if at all, only at meals. The theory of the origin of the two sects is that Pārasnāth, the twenty-third Tirthakār, wore clothes, while Mahāvīra the twenty-fourth did not, and the two sects follow their respective examples. The Digambaras now wear ochre-coloured cloth, and the Swetambaras white. The principal difference at present is that the images in Digambara temples are naked and bare, while those of the Swetambaras are clothed, presumably in white, and also decorated with jewellery and ornaments. The Digambara ascetics may not use vessels for cooking or holding their food, but must take it in their hands from their disciples and eat it thus; while the Swetambara ascetics may use vessels. The Digambara, however, do not consider the straining-cloth, brush, and gauze before the mouth essential to the character of an ascetic, while the Swetambara insist on them. There is in the Central Provinces another small sect called Channāgri or Samaiya, and known elsewhere as Dhundia. These do not put images in their temples at all, but only copies of the Jain sacred books, and pay reverence to them. They will, however, worship in regular Jain temples at places where there are none of their own.

Jain ascetics with cloth before mouth and sweeping-brush

7. Jain ascetics.

The initiation of a Yati or Jati, a Jain ascetic, is thus described: It is frequent for Banias who have no children to vow that their first-born shall be a Yati. Such a boy serves a novitiate with a guru or preceptor, and performs for him domestic offices; and when he is old enough and has made progress in his studies he is initiated. For this purpose the novice is carried out of the tower with music and rejoicing in procession, followed by a crowd of Srāvakas or Jain laymen, and taken underneath the banyan, or any other tree the juice of which is milky. His hair is pulled out at the roots with five pulls; camphor, musk, sandal, saffron and sugar are applied to the scalp; and he is then placed before his guru, stripped of his clothes and with his hands joined. A text is whispered in his ear by the guru, and he is invested with the clothes peculiar to Yatis; two cloths, a blanket and a staff; a plate for his victuals and a cloth to tie them up in; a piece of gauze to tie over his mouth to prevent the entry of insects; a cloth through which to strain his drinking-water to the same end; and a broom made of cotton threads or peacock feathers to sweep the ground before him as he walks, so that his foot may not crush any living thing. The duty of the Yati is to read and explain the sacred books to the Srāvakas morning and evening, such functions being known as Sandhya. His food consists of all kinds of grain, vegetables and fruit produced above the earth; but no roots such as yams or onions. Milk and ghī are permitted, but butter and honey are prohibited. Some strict Yatis drink no water but what has been first boiled, lest they should inadvertently destroy any insect, it being less criminal to boil them than to destroy them in the drinker’s stomach. A Yati having renounced the world and all civil duties can have no family, nor does he perform any office of mourning or rejoicing.9 A Yati was directed to travel about begging and preaching for eight months in the year, and during the four rainy months to reside in some village or town and observe a fast. The rules of conduct to be observed by him were extremely strict, as has already been seen. Those who observed them successfully were believed to acquire miraculous powers. He who was a Siddh or victor, and had overcome his Karma or the sum of his human actions and affections, could read the thoughts of others and foretell the future. He who had attained Kewalgyan, or the state of perfect knowledge which preceded the emancipation of the soul and its absorption into paradise, was a god on earth, and even the gods worshipped him. Wherever he went all plants burst into flower and brought forth fruit, whether it was their season or not. In his presence no animal bore enmity to another or tried to kill it, but all animals lived peaceably together. This was the state attained to by each Tirthakār during his last sojourn on earth. The number of Jain ascetics seems now to be less than formerly and they are not often met with, at least in the Central Provinces. They do not usually perform the function of temple priest.

8. Jain subcastes of Banias.

Practically all the Jains in the Central Provinces are of the Bania caste. There is a small subcaste of Jain Kalārs, but these are said to have gone back to Hinduism.10 Of the Bania subcastes who are Jains the principal are the Parwār, Golapūrab, Oswāl and Saitwāl. Saraogi, the name for a Jain layman, and Charnāgar, a sect of Jains, are also returned as subcastes of Jain Banias. Other important subcastes of Banias, as the Agarwāl and Maheshri, have a Jain section. Nearly all Banias belong to the Digambara sect, but the Oswāl are Swetambaras. They are said to have been originally Rājpūts of Os or Osnagar in Rājputāna, and while they were yet Rājpūts a Swetambara ascetic sucked the poison from the wound of an Oswāl boy whom a snake had bitten, and this induced the community to join the Swetambara sect of the Jains.11

9. Rules and customs of the laity.

The Jain laity are known as Shrāwak or Saraogi, learners. There is comparatively little to distinguish them from their Hindu brethren. Their principal tenet is to avoid the destruction of all animal, including insect life, but the Hindu Banias are practically all Vaishnavas, and observe almost the same tenderness for animal life as the Jains. The Jains are distinguished by their separate temples and method of worship, and they do not recognise the authority of the Vedas nor revere the lingam of Siva. Consequently they do not use the Hindu sacred texts at their weddings, but repeat some verses from their own scriptures. These weddings are said to be more in the nature of a civil contract than of a religious ceremony. The bride and bridegroom walk seven times round the sacred post and are then seated on a platform and promise to observe certain rules of conduct towards each other and avoid offences. It is said that formerly a Jain bride was locked up in a temple for the first night and considered to be the bride of the god. But as scandals arose from this custom, she is now only locked up for a minute or two and then let out again. Jain boys are invested with the sacred thread on the occasion of their weddings or at twenty-one or twenty-two if they are still unmarried at that age. The thread is renewed annually on the day before the full moon of Bhādon (August), after a ten days’ fast in honour of Anānt Nāth Tirthakār. The thread is made by the Jain priests of tree cotton and has three knots. At their funerals the Jains do not shave the moustaches off as a rule, and they never shave the choti or scalp-lock, which they wear like Hindus. They give a feast to the caste-fellows and distribute money in charity, but do not perform the Hindu shrāddh or offering of sacrificial cakes to the dead. The Agarwāl and Khandelwāl Jains, however, invoke the spirits of their ancestors at weddings. Traces of an old hostility between Jains and Hindus survive in the Hindu saying that one should not take refuge in a Jain temple, even to escape from a mad elephant; and in the rule that a Jain beggar will not take alms from a Hindu unless he can perform some service in return, though it may not equal the value of the alms.

10. Connection with Hinduism.

In other respects the Jains closely resemble the Hindus. Brāhmans are often employed at their weddings, they reverence the cow, worship sometimes in Hindu temples, go on pilgrimages to the Hindu sacred places, and follow the Hindu law of inheritance. The Agarwāl Bania Jains and Hindus will take food cooked with water together and intermarry in Bundelkhand, although it is doubtful whether they do this in the Central Provinces. In such a case each party pays a fine to the Jain temple fund. In respect of caste distinctions the Jains are now scarcely less strict than the Hindus. The different Jain subcastes of Banias coming from Bundelkhand will take food together as a rule, and those from Marwār will do the same. The Khandelwāl and Oswāl Jain Banias will take food cooked with water together when it has been cooked by an old woman past the age of child-bearing, but not that cooked by a young woman. The spread of education has awakened an increased interest among the Jains in their scriptures and the tenets of their religion, and it is quite likely that the tendency to conform to Hinduism in caste matters and ceremonies may receive a check on this account.12

11. Temple and car festival.

The Jains display great zeal in the construction of temples in which the images of the Tirthakārs are enshrined. The temples are commonly of the same fashion as those of the Hindus, with a short, roughly conical spire tapering to a point at the apex, but they are frequently adorned with rich carved stone and woodwork. There are fine collections of temples at Muktagiri in Betūl, Kundalpur in Damoh, and at Mount Abu, Girnar, the hill of Parasnāth in Chota Nāgpur, and other places in India. The best Jain temples are often found in very remote spots, and it is suggested that they were built at times when the Jains had to hide in such places to avoid Hindu persecution. And wherever a community of Jain merchants of any size has been settled for a generation or more several fine temples will probably be found. A Jain Bania who has grown rich considers the building of one or more temples to be the best method of expending his money and acquiring religious merit, and some of them spend all their fortune in this manner before their death. At the opening of a new temple the rath or chariot festival should be held. Wooden cars are made, sometimes as much as five stories high, and furnished with chambers for the images of the Tirthakārs. In these the idols of the hosts and all the guests are placed. Each car should be drawn by two elephants, and the procession of cars moves seven times round the temple or pavilion erected for the ceremony. For building a temple and performing this ceremony honorary and hereditary titles are conferred. Those who do it once receive the designation of Singhai; for carrying it out twice they become Sawai Singhai; and on a third occasion Seth. In such a ceremony performed at Khurai in Saugor one of the participators was already a Seth, and in recognition of his great liberality a new title was devised and he became Srimant Seth. It is said, however, that if the car breaks and the elephants refuse to move, the title becomes derisive and is either ‘Lule Singhai,’ the lame one, or ‘Arku Singhai,’ the stumbler. If no elephants are available and the car has to be dragged by men, the title given is Kadhore Singhai.

Jain gods in attitude of contemplation

12. Images of the Tirthakārs.

In the temples are placed the images of Tirthakārs, either of brass, marble, silver or gold. The images may be small or life-size or larger, and the deities are represented in a sitting posture with their legs crossed and their hands lying upturned in front, the right over the left, in the final attitude of contemplation prior to escape from the body and attainment of paradise. There may be several images in one temple, but usually there is only one, though a number of temples are built adjoining each other or round a courtyard. The favourite Tirthakārs found in temples are Rishab Deva, the first; Anantnāth, the fourteenth; Santnāth, the sixteenth; Nemnāth, the twenty-second; Pārasnāth, the twenty-third; and Vardhamāna or Mahāvīra, the twenty-fourth.13 As already stated only Mahāvīra and perhaps Parasnāth, his preceptor, were real historical personages, and the remainder are mythical. It is noticeable that to each of the Tirthakārs is attached a symbol, usually in the shape of an animal, and also a tree, apparently that tree under which the Tirthakār is held to have been seated at the time that he obtained release from the body. And these animals and trees are in most cases those which are also revered and held sacred by the Hindus. Thus the sacred animal of Rishab Deva is the bull, and his tree the banyan; that of Anantnāth is the falcon or bear, and his tree the holy Asoka;14 that of Santnāth is the black-buck or Indian antelope, and his tree the tun or cedar;15 the symbol of Nemnāth is the conch shell (sacred to Vishnu), but his tree, the vetasa, is not known; the animal of Pārasnāth is the serpent or cobra and his tree the dhātaki;16 and the animal of Mahāvīra is the lion or tiger and his tree the teak tree. Among the symbols of the other Tirthakārs are the elephant, horse, rhinoceros, boar, ape, the Brāhmani duck, the moon, the pīpal tree, the lotus and the swastik figure; and among their trees the mango, the jāmun17 and the champak.18 Most of these animals and trees are sacred to the Hindus, and the elephant, boar, ape, cobra and tiger were formerly worshipped themselves, and are now attached to the principal Hindu gods. Similarly the asoka, pīpal, banyan and mango trees are sacred, and also the Brāhmani duck and the swastik sign. It cannot be supposed that the Tirthakārs simply represent the deified anthropomorphic emanations from these animals, because the object of Vardhamāna’s preaching was perhaps like that of Buddha to do away with the promiscuous polytheism of the Hindu religion. But nevertheless the association of the sacred animals and trees with the Tirthakārs furnished a strong connecting link between them and the Hindu gods, and considerably lessens the opposition between the two systems of worship. The god Indra is also frequently found sculptured as an attendant guardian in the Jain temples. The fourteenth Tirthakār, Anantnāth, is especially revered by the people because he is identified with Gautama Buddha.

13. Religious observances.

The priest of a Jain temple is not usually a Yati or ascetic, but an ordinary member of the community. He receives no remuneration and carries on his business at the same time. He must know the Jain scriptures, and makes recitations from them when the worshippers are assembled. The Jain will ordinarily visit a temple and see the god every morning before taking his food, and his wife often goes with him. If there is no temple in their own town or village they will go to another, provided that it is within a practicable distance. The offerings made at the temple consist of rice, almonds, cocoanuts, betel-leaves, areca, dates, cardamoms, cloves and similar articles. These are appropriated by the Hindu Māli or gardener, who is the menial servant employed to keep the temple and enclosures clean. The Jain will not take back or consume himself anything which has been offered to the god. Offerings of money are also made, and these go into the bhandār or fund for maintenance of the temple. The Jains observe fasts for the last week before the new moon in the months of Phāgun (February), Asārh (June) and Kārtik (October). They also fast on the second, fifth, eighth, eleventh and fourteenth days in each fortnight of the four months of the rains from Asārh to Kārtik, this being in lieu of the more rigorous fast of the ascetics during the rains. On these days they eat only once, and do not eat any green vegetables. After the week’s fast at the end of Kārtik, at the commencement of the month of Aghan, the Jains begin to eat all green vegetables.

Jain temple in Seoni

14. Tenderness for animal life.

The great regard for animal life is the most marked feature of the Jain religion among the laity as well as the clergy. The former do not go to such extremes as the latter, but make it a practice not to eat food after sunset or before sunrise, owing to the danger of swallowing insects. Now that their beliefs are becoming more rational, however, and the irksome nature of this rule is felt, they sometimes place a lamp with a sieve over it to produce rays of light, and consider that this serves as a substitute for the sun. Formerly they maintained animal hospitals in which all kinds of animals and reptiles, including monkeys, poultry and other birds were kept and fed, and any which had broken a limb or sustained other injuries were admitted and treated. These were known as pinjrapol or places of protection.19 A similar institution was named jivuti, and consisted of a small domed building with a hole at the top large enough for a man to creep in, and here weevils and other insects which the Jains might find in their food were kept and provided with grain.20 In Rājputāna, where rich Jains probably had much influence, considerable deference was paid to their objections to the death of any living thing. Thus a Mewār edict of A.D. 1693 directed that no one might carry animals for slaughter past their temples or houses. Any man or animal led past a Jain house for the purpose of being killed was thereby saved and set at liberty. Traitors, robbers or escaped prisoners who fled for sanctuary to the dwelling of a Jain Yati or ascetic could not be seized there by the officers of the court. And during the four rainy months, when insects were most common, the potter’s wheel and Teli’s oil-press might not be worked on account of the number of insects which would be destroyed by them.21

15. Social condition of the Jains.

As they are nearly all of the Bania caste the Jains are usually prosperous, and considering its small size, the standard of wealth in the community is probably very high for India, the total number of Jains in the country being about half a million. Beggars are rare, and, like the Pārsis and Europeans, the Jains feeling themselves a small isolated body in the midst of a large alien population, have a special tenderness for their poorer members, and help them in more than the ordinary degree. Most of the Jain Banias are grain-dealers and moneylenders like other Banias. Cultivation is prohibited by their religion, owing to the destruction of animal life which it involves, but in Saugor, and also in the north of India, many of them have now taken to it, and some plough with their own hands. Mr. Marten notes22 that the Jains are beginning to put their wealth to a more practical purpose than the lavish erection and adornment of temples. Schools and boarding-houses for boys and girls of their religion are being opened, and they subscribe liberally for the building of medical institutions. It may be hoped that this movement will continue and gather strength, both for the advantage of the Jains themselves and the country generally.

1 Barth, p. 148.

2 Hopkins, p. 310, and The Jains, p. 40.

3 Barth, p. 149.

4 The Jainas, pp. 38–47.

5 The writer is inclined to doubt whether either Buddhism or Jainism were really atheistic, and to think that they were perhaps rather forms of pantheism; but the above is the view of the best authorities.

6 The Jainas, p. 10.

7 The Jainas, p. 6.

8 Ibidem, p. 10.

9 Moor’s Hindu Infanticide, pp. 175–176.

10 Marten, C.P. Census Report (1911), p. 67.

11 Maclagan, Punjab Census Report (1891), p. 183.

12 Mr. Marten’s Central Provinces Census Report, 1911.

13 The particulars about the Tirthakārs and the animals and trees associated with them are taken from The Jainas.

14 Jonesia Asoka.

15 Cedrela toona.

16 Grislea tomentosa.

17 Eugenia jambolana.

18 Michelia champaka.

19 Crooke, Things Indian, art. Pinjrapol.

20 Moor, Hindu Infanticide, p. 184.

21 Rājasthān, vol. i. p. 449, and pp. 696, 697, App.

22 Central Provinces Census Report, 1911.

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