Word: jains
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...temper of a secularist age is penetrating even to Ahmedabad: some Jain priests have recently been seen to remove their masks in public, to eat and drink in restaurants and to use lamps without thought for the safety of moths. Last week things went even farther. One hundred of the boldest priests met and announced that, since intercession with the gods is industrial employment like any other, they had formed themselves into the Ahmedabad Jain Temple Priests Trade Union. From temple committees they demanded: an $8 minimum monthly wage, one day off a week, seven days' paid sick leave...
Between the gods and the faithful who worship at the 100 Jain* temples of Ahmedabad in western India stand 600-odd priests. Theirs is a hard and holy life; they say ritual prayers, guard temple treasures, abstain from smoking and drinking, sup before sundown (for lamps lure moths to destruction), and wear white cloth pads over their noses and mouths (lest their breathing destroy gnats or germs). Their wages never exceed $5 a month...
...lonely hill near the Indian village of Sravana Belgola, in the state of Mysore, stands a stone statue, 57 ft. high, of a stiffly poised man with a quiet, half-smiling face. The statue's name is Gomateswara, and he is a patron saint of India's Jain religion, an ancient offshoot of Hinduism. Half the population of India were once Jains, but their numbers have now shrunk to a bare 1,500,000. They dwindled possibly because of the ritual difficulties of their religion, which favors a strict asceticism and holds, among other tenets, that a believer...
Last week, traveling by railroad, buses and horse-drawn carts, 300,000 of India's remaining Jains gathered at the feet of Gomateswara's statue to celebrate Mahamastakabhisheka (the anointing of the head), a festival last observed in 1940. Day & night, pilgrims climbed the hill, chanting Gomateswara's name, and throughout the night floodlights lit up the statue. Jain sanyasis (holy men) were present to sanctify the occasion. Some of them were naked, following Gomateswara's own legendary example, to demonstrate their renunciation of earthly ties...
...India have been more than musty perusals of dwindling philosophies. His second trip, during the war, was for the O.S.S. for which he did secret work throughout the East. His final excursion this fall was a combination of study and teaching. For some months he worked with a Jain monk "in a perfect Ivory Tower." Then he went on a tour of colleges lecturing in English on Sanskrit philosophy. He found that. The education system built by the British still survives. It was designed to turn out administrative officers...a type that India has less need...