The principles of faith, as mentioned before, ore common to all classes of Jainas, but some ditTerences occur in the practice of their duties, as they are divided into religious and lay orders, Yatis and Srarukos. Both, of course, must place implicit belief in the doctrines of their but the rot/ has to lead a life of ab stinence, silence. and continence; lie should wear a thin cloth over his mouth to prevent in sect: from flying into it, and he should carry a brush to sweep the place on which he is about to sit. to remove any living creature out of the way of danger. Their highest law of duty is not to harm any living creature, and their doctrine of metempsychosis does not stop at animal exist ences, but it includes the inanimate world as well. The saintly You may dispense with all acts of worship; while the Srfiraka has to add to the obser•ance of the religious and moral duties the practieal worship of the saints, and a Profomul reverence for his more pious brethren. The secular Jain must, like the ascetic, practice the four virtues—liberality, gentleness, piety, and penance; he must govern his mind, tongue, and acts; abstain at certain seasons from salt, flowers, green fruits, roots, honey, grapes, to bacco; drink water thrice strained, and never leave a liquid uncovered lest an insect should be drowned in it; it is his duty also to visit daily a temple where some of the images of the Jain saints are placed, walk round it three times, make an obeisance to the image, and make offerings of fruits or flowers, while pronouncing some such formula as "Salutation to the Saints, to the Pure Existences, to the Sages, to the Teachers, to all the Devout in the world." The reader in a Jain temple is a Yati, but the minis trant priest is not seldom a Brahman, and the presence of such Bralynanical ministrants seems to have introduced several innova tions in their worship. In Upper India the ritual in use is often intermixed with formulas belonging more properly to the Saiva and Sakta worship, and images of Siva and his consort have their place in Jaina temples. In the south of India they appear, as mentioned before, to ob serve also all the essential rites or Snnskaras of the Brahmanical Hindu. The festivals of the Jainas are especially those relating to events in the life of their deified saints: hut they observe also several common to other Hindus, as the spring festival, the Sripanchnmi, and others.
The Jains are divided into two principal divi sions, Diganibaras and Sretambaras. The for mer word means 'sky-clad,' or naked, and it is thought that the Gynmosophists, or naked dev otees, to whom the Greek writers allude, were .Jains: but this is not quite certain. (See GYM NOSOPIIISTS.) At the present day ascetics of the Digambara class wear colored garments, and con fine the disuse of clothes to the period of their meals. Suetrinibura means 'one who wears white garments': but the differences between these two divisions are far from being restricted to that of dress; it is said to comprehend a list of 700 topics, of which 84 are considered to be of paramount importance. In the south of India the Jains are divided into two castes: in Upper Hindustan they are all of one caste. It is re markable, however, that among themselves they re( ognize a number of families between which no intermarriage can take place, and that resemble in this respect also the ancient Brab manical Hindus, who established similar restric tions in their religious codes.
As regards the pantheon of the Jaina creed it is more fantastic than that of the Brahmanic sects, whence it is borrowed to a great extent, hut without any of the poetical and philosophical interest which inheres in the gods of the Vedic time. The highest rank among their number less hosts of divine beings—divided by them into four classes, with various subdivisions—they assign to the deified saints. whom they call Jinn, Arhat, or Tirthaka•a, i.e. prophet, besides a va riety of other generic names. The Jainas enu merate twenty-four Tirthakaras of their past age, twenty-four of the present, and twenty-four of the age to come: and they invest these holy personages with thirty-six superhuman attributes of the most extravagant character. Notwith standing the sameness of these attributes. they distinguish the twenty-fou• .[inns of the present age from each other in color. stature, and lon gevity. Two of them are red. Iwo white. blue. two black: the rest are of a golden hue or a yellowish brown. The other two peculiarities are regulated by them with equal precision, and according to a syGtem of decrement, from Rishab ha, the first Jinn, who was five hundred poles in stature, and lived 8,400,000 great years, down to Mahavira, the twenty-fourth, who had degen erated to the size of a man. and was no more than forty years on earth, the age of his prede cessor, ParSTanatlia, not exceeding one hundred years. The present worship is almost restricted to the last two Tirthakaras; and these may he considered as historical personages. As, more over, among the disciples of Slahavira there is one who is called Gautania, and as Gautama is also a name of the founder of the Buddha faith• it has been thought that Oautama Sakyamuni, the Buddha. is alluded to; but this is not accepted, although Buddha calls himself by the title of .Jima, 'The Conquering One,' and the Buddhist scriptures also sometimes speak of him as the twenty-fifth Buddha or Jina.
Jainism, in contrast to Buddhism, never spread beyond the bounds of India ; on the other hand, it has lived longer than Buddhism in the land that gave it birth. Prakrit is the canonical speech of Jainism, but the sacred literature of the Jains is uninteresting or stupid. Among the best older essays on the tenets, mythology, observances, and literature of this sect are those of Colebrooke in his Miscellaneous Essays, ed. by Cowell, vol. ii. (London, 1873), and Wilson, Essays. vol. i. (London, 1862). More recent and important is the sketch by Monier-Will iams, in the Journal of the Royal ,Isiatic So ciety, vol. xx. (London. 1888) : Jacobi, `Jaina Sutras,' in the Books of the East, vols. xxii., xlv. (Oxford, 1884-95), and the excellent outline by Hopkins, "Jainism," in Religion of India (Boston, 1805). On Jain literature, con sult: Weber, Sacred Literature of the Jains, trans. by Smyth 1803) : on Jain ar chitecture, Ferguson, ea rr Temples of India (London, 1880) ; and Burgess, Buddhist and Jaina Cares 1881-83).