Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 3.djvu/181

 SHADI SETH. (153)

HADI SETH is an inhabitant of Bhagpnt, a large town in the Meerut district, and belongs to the Surongie division of the Bunnya, or shopkceping tribe, who are Jains. Surongies are found in the northern part of the Gangetic Doab and the neighbourhood of Delhi; and are remarkable for the special horror with which they regard the taking of animal life; for fear of destroying which they generally abstain from the use of a candle or other artificial light, and even keep the mouth closed lest insects should be killed by entering it.

Jains are far from cleanly in then persons, and for this reason, as well as their heretical tenets, they are regarded with contempt by Hindoos in general. They eat nothing but vegetables, are of average longevity, and are notoriously avaricious. They worship a deified saint called Parisnath, whose image they manufacture in stone, making daily offerings of rice, almonds, &c.

The Jains are one of the most ancient sects of India, and are decided schismatics from Brahminical Hindooism. It has been doubted whether the institution of the sect preceded, or was contemporary with. Buddhism; or whether it arose afterwards, and as a sort of compromise between Hindooism and Buddhism at the period of the bitter contest between the rival sects, which ended in the victory of the Brahminical faith in its modern form. On most grounds the latter hypothesis appears the most probable. Buddhism rejected caste, rejected even belief in one god Avhich had been the doctrine of ancient Hindooism, and held asceticism to be the highest spiritual aim. Jainism, while it followed Buddhism in its atheistic doctrine, and the worship of deified mortals who had attained divine power through asceticism, yet reserved divisions of caste—not exactly Hindoo, but after a course of its own; and with it a belief in some of the Hindoo Pantheon, which it immensely increased. If the chronology of the Brahmins is vague and immense, that of the Jains far exceeds it; so also their idea of sacred geography. In short, taking on this point Brahminical Hindooism as a foundation, the Jains have built upon it an edifice far more fantastic and grotesque. Jains admit of