15. Social condition of the Jains.
As they are nearly all of the Bania caste the Jains are usually prosperous, and considering its small size, the standard of wealth in the community is probably very high for India, the total number of Jains in the country being about half a million. Beggars are rare, and, like the Pārsis and Europeans, the Jains feeling themselves a small isolated body in the midst of a large alien population, have a special tenderness for their poorer members, and help them in more than the ordinary degree. Most of the Jain Banias are grain-dealers and moneylenders like other Banias. Cultivation is prohibited by their religion, owing to the destruction of animal life which it involves, but in Saugor, and also in the north of India, many of them have now taken to it, and some plough with their own hands. Mr. Marten notes[22] that the Jains are beginning to put their wealth to a more practical purpose than the lavish erection and adornment of temples. Schools and boarding-houses for boys and girls of their religion are being opened, and they subscribe liberally for the building of medical institutions. It may be hoped that this movement will continue and gather strength, both for the advantage of the Jains themselves and the country generally.
[1] Barth, p. 148.
[2] Hopkins, p. 310, and The Jains, p. 40.
[3] Barth, p. 149.
[4] The Jainas, pp. 38–47.
[5] The writer is inclined to doubt whether either Buddhism or Jainism were really atheistic, and to think that they were perhaps rather forms of pantheism; but the above is the view of the best authorities.
[6] The Jainas, p. 10.
[7] The Jainas, p. 6.
[8] Ibidem, p. 10.
[9] Moor’s Hindu Infanticide, pp. 175–176.
[10] Marten, C.P. Census Report (1911), p. 67.
[11] Maclagan, Punjab Census Report (1891), p. 183.
[12] Mr. Marten’s Central Provinces Census Report, 1911.
[13] The particulars about the Tirthakārs and the animals and trees associated with them are taken from The Jainas.
[14] Jonesia Asoka.
[15] Cedrela toona.
[16] Grislea tomentosa.
[17] Eugenia jambolana.
[18] Michelia champaka.
[19] Crooke, Things Indian, art. Pinjrapol.
[20] Moor, Hindu Infanticide, p. 184.
[21] Rājasthān, vol. i. p. 449, and pp. 696, 697, App.
[22] Central Provinces Census Report, 1911.