JAINS (called by some JOINUS), a sect or rather race of Hindoos, found in considerable numbers in different parts of India, particularly in the southern peninsula. They form a class of dissenters from the established faith of Brahminism, so generally considered throughout India as alone founded on an orthodox basis. They deny altogether the authority of the Vedas, regarded by the genuine Hindoo as the holiest of books. They either disown, or sink into a subordinate station, all the grand objects of Hindoo veneration. In their hypothesis concerning the origin of the world, they have adopted opinions which seem to partake of the character of atheism. They do not, like the followers of the Vedas, acknowledge any spiritual and eternal Being, from whom the universe derived its origin. The material world, as well as the minds of all men and animals, are held by them to be eternal. They refuse to acknowledge any thing which is not, or has not been, the object of the senses. Upon this principle they deny the existence of any beings superior to man, and admit no objects of worship except men who have raised themselves by their merits to the rank of divinities. As, however, they set no bounds to the perfection which the human soul may arrive at, their most eminent saints and pontiffs (among whom they particularly celebrate Gomat Iswara Swami) partake almost the attributes of Supreme divinity. To this station, however, they are exalted, not in consequence of a virtuous life, or of benefits rendered to mankind, but of those excesses of absurd and extravagant penance to which, throughout all India, such sovereign merit is attached. They have three ranks of ascetics, whom they call Yatis. The first, called Anuvrata, can be attained only by him who forsakes his family, entirely cuts off his hair, holds always in his hand a bundle of peacock's feathers and an earthen pot, and wears only clothes of a tawny colour. The second rank, Mahavrata, requires that all dress should be abandoned, except a mere rag to cover nakedness, and that the hair, instead of being shaven off, should be pulled out by the roots. He who aspires still higher, and seeks to attain the third degree, or Nirvana, throws aside even rags, and remains entirely naked; he eats nothing but rice, and that only once in two days. The name is nearly synonymous with that of Deity, and he is held in nearly equal veneration with the priests and rajas, whose images are worshipped in the temples. At Billicull, or Belligola, the residence of their high priest, they have a gigantic image of Gomat Iswara Swami, the foot of which is nine feet in length, so that the height of the entire statue cannot be less than fifty-four feet; and there is a similar one at Kurcul, near Mangalore. This worship of gigantic images is common to them with the followers of Boodha, whom they also closely resemble in
their theological tenets; nay, Samana and Gaudma, the main objects of Boodh veneration, are enumerated by the Jains among the earliest and most venerated of their priests. On the other hand, they differ from them entirely in being divided into four casts, distinguished from each other by the same privileges and manners as among other Hindoos. The Jains observe also similar penances, carrying them only to a greater extreme. They are also scrupulous to a still greater degree as to causing the death of any living thing, even the minutest insect. The strictest Jains, to guard against this danger, do not eat after sunset; they have always a small broom to sweep the ground before them, and never drink water unless strained through a cloth. The orthodox Hindoos have ceremonies by which any involuntary offence of this kind may be expiated; but the Jains, not allowing the efficacy of these, have no means of relieving their soul from the burden of such a trespass. Like the other Hindoos, they consider it unlawful for the widow to marry again, but discourage the barbarous practice of sacrificing herself on the body of the husband. On the whole, it would appear that while their doctrines and belief closely coincide with those of the Boodhists, their civil and social life is discriminated only by minute shades from that of the Hindoos. They have a system of their own with regard to history, chronology, and physics, of which we need only observe, that its tenets are still more extravagant and absurd than those contained in the orthodox pages of the Vedas and Puranas.
See Asiatic Annual Register, Vol. IX.—Dubois on the Manners of the People of India, Lond. 1817.—Ward on the History, Literature, and Religion of the Hindoos. Lond. 1817. (B.)