Page:The Indian Antiquary Vol 2.djvu/25

 January, 1873.] DESISABDASAMGRAHA. 17 matiya school, by which doubtless he designates the Jainas, since they still call their doctrine Sammati.* The leading and distinguishing doctrines of the Jainas are : the denial of the divine origin and authority of the Vedas; reverence for the Jinas, who by their austerities acquired a position superior to that of even those Hindu gods whom they reverence ; and the most extreme tender¬ ness of animal life. Life “ is defined to be without beginning or end, endowed with attri¬ butes of its own, agent and enjoyer, conscious, subtle, proportionate to the body it animates” • —diminishing with the gnat and expanding with the elephant ; through sin it passes into animals or goes to hell ; through virtue and vice combined it passes into men ; and through the annihilation of both vice and virtue it obtains emancipation.f The duties of a Yati or ascetic are ten,-»-patience, gentleness, integrity, disinterestedness, abstraction, mortification, truth, purity, poverty, and continence and the &ravakas “ add to their moral and religious code the practical worship of the Tlrthati- k a r a s, and profound reverence for their more pious brethren.”§ The moral obligations of the Jainas are summed up in their five mahayra- tas, which are almost identical with the pancha-&tla of the Bauddhas :—care not to injure life, truth, honesty, chastity, and the suppression of worldly desires. They enumerate four merits or dharmas—liberality, gentle¬ ness, piety, and penance ; and three forms of restraint—government of the mind, the tongue, and the person. Their minor instructions are in many cases trivial and ludicrous, such as not to deal in soap, natron, indigo, and iron ; not to eat in the open air after it begins to rain, nor in the dark, lest a fly should be swallowed ; not to leave a liquid uncovei'bd lest an insect should be drowned ; water to be thrice strained before it is drunk; and vayukarma—keeping out of the way of Ihe wind, lest it should blow in¬ sects into the mouth.|| The Yatis and priests carry an U g h & or besom, made of cotton thread, to sweep insects out of the way of harm as they enter the temples or where they sit down, and a Mohomati or mouth-cloth to prevent insects entering the mouth when pray¬ ing or washing the images. The proper objects of worship are the Jinas or Tirthankaras, but they allow the existence of the Hindu gods, and have admitted to a share in their worship such of them as they have con¬ nected with the tales of their saints. As among the Bauddhas, Indra or Sakra is of frequent occurrence, the Jainas distinguishing two prin¬ cipal Indras—S u k r a, regent of the north heaven, and Tsana, regent of the south, besides many inferior ones ; and images of Sarasvati and of Devi or Bhavani are to be found in many of their temples. Nor are those of Hanuman, Bhairava, or Gan- e 6 a excluded from their sacred places. Besides, they have a pantheon of their own, in which they reckon four classes of superhuman beings, — Bhuvanapatis, Vyantaras, Jyotishkas, and Vaimanikas, — com¬ prising—1, the brood of the Asuras, Nagas, Garudtt, the Dikpalas, &c., supposed to re¬ side in the hells below the earth ; 2, the R a k- shasas, Pi64chas, Bhfi t as, Kinnaras, Gandharvas, &c., inhabiting mountains, forests, and lower air; 3, five orders of celestial luminaries ; and 4, the gods of present and past Kalpas, of the former of which are those born in the heavens—8 audharma, lean a, Sa- natkumara, Mahendra, Brahma, Lan- taka, S u k r a, Sahasrara, An at a, Pra¬ na ta, Arana, and Achyuta, &c. Each J i n a, they say, has also a sort of * familiar* goddess of his own, called a Sasanadevi, who executes his behests. These are perhaps analogous to the & aktis, or Matris of the Brahmans; indeed among them we find A m- b i k a, a name of Kaumari, the 6 a k 11 of Kartikiy a, and Chanda and Mahakali, names of Bhavani. J THE DESISABDASAMGRAHA OF HEMACHANDRA. Br G. BUHLER, Ph. D., EDUCATIONAL INSPECTOR, GUJARAT. Though we have been for a long time in possession of a number of Hindu grammars 8 tan. Julien, Memoires de Eiouen Thsang, tom. IL, p. 164; and my Notes of a Visit to Gujarat, pp. 60, 61. t H. H. W ilson, Works, voL I., p. 807 ; Asiat. Resear., vol. XVII., p. 263. £ See Rules for Yatis in the Kalpa Sutra, Stevenson's transl., pp. 103—114; and especially Nava Tatva, in ib~ p. 124. which treat of the older Prakrits, and though several European scholars have given us excel- § H. H. Wilson, Works, voL L, p. 817 : Asiat. Res- vol. XVII., p.272. Srawaks or Jains; Trans. R. Asiat. Soe., voL I., pp. 420, 421. T Amarakosha, I. i. § 1, 83 ; and conf. Hodgson, Illustra¬ tions, p/218.
 * l For many similar prohibitions Bee Delamaine On the