Outlines of Jainism c12: Chapter IV.—Jaina Ritual
Outlines of Jainism c12
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Chapter IV.—Jaina Ritual
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This relates to the pursuit of the path of salvation in communion with people living in accordance with Jainism. The object of ritual is the ideal, the goal, namely, truth, perfection, the perfect soul. Ritual is the way in which we manifest our love and reverence for our ideal. It is the enjoyment of what is beyond us, until devotion becomes ecstasy and we feel that we are what we considered to exist outside us, that we are one with the goal, and that the ideal is realized within ourselves.
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The subject is long and complicated and concerns, in the main, the occult side of Jainism. But one or two points may be noticed.
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Knowledge may be derived by considering four aspects of the thing known: *nāma*, *sthāpanā*, *dravya*, and *bhāva*, or its name, status, substance, and nature, e.g. we may adore our ideal soul as typified in Lord Mahāvīra. The name of Mahāvīra evokes the ideal before our eyes in all its glory; the thrill with which it is accompanied is our true worship. So in the soldier's breast "Napoleon" and "Alexander" arouse thrills of reverence which are akin to feelings of worship. This is the *nāma* point of view.
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The second method, *sthāpanā*, is the installation of the adored one in a material representation: photograph, picture, keepsake, image, model, statue—these are examples. Absent friends can be loved and remembered by this means; absent guides can be reverenced;
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absent ideals can be worshipped. It is a mistake to call this *idol-worship*; it is ideal-worship and eminently useful. Like all useful things, it may be abused; but that is hardly a sufficient reason for discarding it.
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The third view-point is *dravya*, the thing or person which is to become in the future: for example, respect given to the Prince of Wales as the future King of England, and so forth. It is in this way that the future Tīrthaṅkaras can be worshipped in Jainism.
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But it must never be forgotten that it is no one person in particular that the Jainas worship. They worship the ideal and nothing but the ideal, namely, the soul in its perfect condition. This ideal may be Christ, Śaṅkara, Viṣṇu, Brahma, Muhammad, Jehovah, or any other type of perfection; and this indicates at once the rational basis and the catholic breadth of the Jaina doctrines.
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The fourth way is *bhāva*, whereby the thing or person in its actual nature is meant, e.g. Lord Mahāvīra to his contemporaries.
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It must be noticed that, as faith is the first, ritual is the last part of religion in its widest sense. Faith brings us to truth; philosophy makes us grasp it; ethics makes us practise it; and ritual makes us one with it. In Jainism faith tells us that we have a soul and that it has in it an untold wealth of knowledge, purity, power, and bliss. Jaina philosophy gives us a detailed grasp of this principle, and tells us how karmic matter obscures this Infinite Quaternary; Jaina ethics takes us along the path to conquer matter and its children pain, ignorance, and weakness; and Jaina ritual makes us move on and on until the last speck of matter is removed and the soul shines resplendent, all-pure, all-powerful, as the brightest embodiment of encouragement for the knower, of hope and power and inspiration and peace for the faithful!