Kids Portal For Parents India Kids Network
Mahavir Jayanti Images: Mahavir Photos
Visit to a Jain temple: A visit to a Jain temple
Dom Peter Bowe visited one of the 37 Jain temples in Bangalore. He describes his visit below.
The Jain temple was at a busy city cross-roads; the faithful were coming, as they do each day, for morning prayers and puja, having specially bathed and dressed in clean white clothes, some with the masks which Jains, out of respect for their sacred principle of ahimsa (non-violence), wear to prevent harming living beings in the air with their breath.
In the compact, exquisitely carved, marble temple, with a perambulatory outer raised section and an inner domed shrine open on three sides, a most devotional atmosphere prevailed.
A small group of youths was singing bhajans accompanied by tabela (finger drums) and small harmonium.
The Jains were most hospitable: we were led around the shrines and into the inner sanctum, and Jain beliefs were meticulously explained.
For Jains, like Buddhists agnostic, the gods and idols are not real in themselves, rather symbols of human attitudes, aspirations and fears, so that worship is really about one’s own integration in oneself and with the world around. Purity, right living and service of others are hallmarks of their faith.
Mahavir Jayanti Images For Jains
