Absent Lord: The Eightfold Worship

The eightfold worship (astprakari puja) is performed in the morning, usually in a temple. It is the daily rite of worship for orthoprax Jains; as such, it is the most important institutionalized form of worship for Jains. It differs from what we have seen thus far. The other rites we have looked at have been congregational; that is, they are designed to be performed by groups of worshipers - in the case of Parsvanath's five-kalyanak puja (and rites like it), by a group of potentially very large size. The eightfold worship, however, is strictly individual. Although many people may perform it at the same time in a temple, each worshiper is engaged in what amounts to a solo operation. One may say, perhaps, that as a performance it represents the ultimate conflation of performer and audience: in effect they are one and the same person. Moreover, there is no text for the rite as such. Some perform the rite in silence; others recite or sing verses that are provided by various layman's manuals. The verses can also be meditated upon while the rite is being performed. One of my Jaipur friends used only Sanskrit verses, which he knew by heart. As in everything connected with Jainism, there is great variation in individual practice.

A worshiper intending to perform the eightfold worship must come to the temple in a state of purity sufficient to allow him or her to touch the images.^[1] Having uttered nisihi and entered the temple, and having greeted and circumambulated the temple's main image, the worshiper should apply a sandalwood paste mark to his or her forehead. He or she then utters nisihi a second time and enters the inner shrine to begin worship.

As the name of the rite implies, it has eight separate components. The first of these components is called jal puja ("worship with water"; also known as praksal puja or abhisek). If necessary, the image is first carefully and gently cleaned of all adhering remains of the previous day's worship. The worshiper (or each worshiper if more than one is participating) then pours liquid over the image, usually a mixture of milk and water first, and then pure water. The verses supplied by layman's manuals for meditation upon or recitation during this act (Muktiprabhvijay n.d.: 50; Hemprabhasriji 1977:35) express the worshiper's desire that his or her karmas be washed away. After the bathing, participants often touch the wet base of the image and then bring the moisture to their forehead and eyes. In temples in Ahmedabad the liquid run-off drains into receptacles below the altar. In Jaipur the liquid is commonly mopped up with a cloth, which can then be wrung into a receptacle. In either case, a small amount of this liquid is made available to other temple visitors who do not perform the eightfold worship. Worshipers anoint their eyes and foreheads with it and occasionally take small quantities to their homes in bottles. The remainder is disposed of in a river or at some out-of-the-way place where it is unlikely to come under anyone's feet.^[2] At the conclusion of jal puja the image and its base are carefully and completely dried with three separate cloths.

Jal puja enacts the infant Tirthankar's first bath on Mount Meru, and is precisely the same ritual gesture that we have seen in considerably more elaborated form in the snatra puja. This interpretation is in no way arcane or obscure. One acquaintance (in Ahmedabad) compared the sensation of drying the image after jal puja to the pleasure of drying an infant after his or her bath. The reclaiming of residual liquids, moreover, is not unique to this rite. Bathing an image is central to most rites of image worship, and the liquids used are normally available to worshipers afterwards.

Part two of the eightfold worship is called candan puja or sometimes kesar-baras puja. Camphor (baras) is sometimes applied to the entire image as part of this rite, but the main ritual act is the application of sandalwood paste (candan), sometimes mixed with saffron (kesar), to nine points on the image's body. With the ring finger of his or her right hand the worshiper applies the sandalwood paste to the right and left large toes, knees, wrists, shoulders, top of head, forehead, neck, heart, and navel. In Ahmedabad worshipers usually apply single dots to the body parts in question; in Jaipur extra dots are commonly added.

In his layman's manual, the ascetic author Muktiprabhvijay (n.d.: 50) renders the sentiment of the couplet he provides for this portion of the rite as follows, "O Lord, just as candan is cool, I wish that by means of this candan puja my mind (cit) will also be removed from the heat of lust, anger, etc., and become cool and peaceful."^[3] In South Asian cultures there exists a concept of metaphysical temperature. Certain things and substances, especially edibles, are classified as inherently "hot" or "cool," irrespective of physical temperature. Sandalwood paste is seen as "cool" in this sense, and this provides a metaphorical bridge to the notion of the spiritual equanimity that the rite is supposed to produce. Muktiprabhvijay also provides separate couplets for each of the nine annointings (ibid.: 51-53); the emphasis is on the soteriological significance of the anointing of each separate body part.^[4]

Adorning the image with flowers (puspa puja or phul puja) is the third part of the eightfold worship. The flowers should be fresh, flawless, and fully bloomed. Muktiprabhvijay renders the sentiment of the verse he provides for the rite as: "Oh Lord, by means of worshiping you with flowers, may my life also become fragrant with the five-colored flowers of pancacar and jnan-darsan-caritra " (ibid.: 54).^[5] Worshiping with flowers is in fact problematical for Jains because of the violence inflicted on the flowers and the plants from which they were picked. This leads Muktiprabhvijay to some fairly desperate casuistry (ibid.: 55-57). He says that the flowers in question are picked by the Mali (gardener) for his livelihood, and therefore when a layman pays a price for the flowers there can be no question of sin (pap) or fault (dos). He adds that when the layman purchases such flowers he should think that, if he does not buy them, they will go to some wrong believer (mithyatvi) who will burn them in a (Hindu-style) sacrifice. It could also be that these flowers might go to some debauched person who will make them into a necklace or bouquet to give to his mistress or concubine. The flowers might then become a bed to be wallowed upon in lust; or they might end up on some woman's neck, and in this way cause someone to become infatuated and thus pushed in the direction of sin. "Therefore," the buyer should think, "it is good that I buy these flowers and use them in the holy activity of the Lord's worship." The author concludes by saying that we sin when see a goat fall into the hands of a butcher because we have made no effort to save it. We commit the same kind of sin by not buying the flowers; in fact, we obtain great merit (punya) from buying flowers and using them in the Lord's worship.

The first three parts of the eightfold worship, as just described, occur within the inner shrine. As a group they are called ang puja, limb worship, because they focus on the image's body and its parts (ang). The remaining five rites are known collectively as agra puja, worship performed "in front of" (agra) the image.^[6]Ang puja and agra puja together form the category of dravya puja, "worship with material things," as opposed to bhav puja, "mental worship." Ang puja involves intimate physical contact with the image. Agra puja occurs at a distance; as suggested by its name, this type of worship is performed before the image in the temple's main hall. The focus of ang puja is honorific bodily attentions: bathing, anointing, adorning. The various gestures comprising agra puja are in some ways very heterogeneous, but an important aspect of this sequence is the offering of edibles. Agra puja is specifically associated with food (ahara) in some texts (Williams 1963: 218).

A worshiper who has completed ang puja leaves the inner shrine, washes his or her hands, and then commences agra puja. Because these rites take place in the temple's main hall and do not involve contact with the divine image, their performance does not require the special personal purification and dress necessary for ang puja. Many temple visitors, therefore, perform only agra puja.

The fourth rite of the eightfold worship, and the first of the agra puja series, is dhup puja, worship with incense (dhup). The worshiper circles incense before the image while standing at the door to the inner shrine. Muktiprabhvijay renders the associated verse as, "O Lord, just as the incense [offered] before you causes inauspicious atoms (asubh pudgal) to go away and fragrance to spread, so by means of worshiping you with incense, may my inauspicious inner thoughts vanish and my life become perfumed" (Muktiprabhviyay n.d.: 57).

Then follows the fifth rite, called dipak puja, worship with a lamp (dipak). Still standing at the inner shrine's door, the worshiper circles a lamp before the image. The accompanying couplet expresses the feeling. that, "O Lord, by means of worshiping you with a lamp, may the darkness of my heart's ignorance be dispelled and may the lamp of the knowledge that lights up the universe burn" (ibid.: 58).

The sixth, seventh, and eighth parts of the eightfold worship form an integrated group of rites. These consist of a series of offerings, or offering-like gestures, that are made on an elevated surface. In Ahmedabad this is usually done on a low table positioned directly in front of the worshiper as he or she sits, facing the image, on the floor of the temple's main hall. In Jaipur it is usually done on the upper surface of the bhandar box (a box with a slotted top for temple donations), which is typically situated directly in front of the entrance into the inner shrine, or on a special low offering table located in front of the main shrine's entrance. I think this difference merely reflects the larger number of worshipers that typically attend Ahmedabad temples in the morning hours. In any case, this is the most visible part of Jain worship, and it is what most non-Jain visitors notice when they visit a Svetambar temple.

The first rite of this group, and thus part number six of the eightfold worship, is called aksat puja, meaning worship with unbroken rice grains (aksat). The worshiper forms a diagram on the surface of the platform using perfect and nonviable grains of rice: first a svastik, above it three small heaps of rice, and above these a crescent surmounted by a dot (see Figure 9). The significance of the nonviability of the rice is that this is consonant with the worshiper's hope not to be reborn. Muktiprabhvijay renders the associated couplet as, "O Lord, by means of worshiping you with aksat may I rapidly attain the imperishable (aksay) stage" (ibid.: 58).^[7] The svastik's four arms represent the four classes of unliberated beings: deities, humans, hell-dwellers, and animals and plants. The three small heaps are the "three jewels" of the Jain tradition (knowledge, insight, and right conduct), and the crescent and dot signify liberated souls in their abode at the apex of the universe. The whole figure is thus a representation of the rudiments of the Jain belief system, depicting the situation of unliberated beings, the means of liberation, and liberation itself.

Figure 9.
The diagram of rice formed in aksat
puja. Offerings will be placed on the diagram in
the following phases of the eightfold worship.

The seventh part of the eightfold worship is naivedya puja, the offering of food. Usually sweets of some kind (often rock sugar) are offered. The offered items are placed directly atop the svastik at its vertex. Many worshipers also offer a coin, usually by placing it on the middle heap of rice above the svastik. Although the food offering is certainly associated with notions of food and nourishment, it is not conceived as a "feeding" of the Tirthankar. It is linked instead with the notion of the renunciation of food in imitation of the Tirthankar. This we see clearly from the sense of the verse associated with the rite, which Muktiprabhvijay renders as "O Lord, I have eaten and am weary of eating, and you remain non-eating (anahari) and obtain the highest happiness. You are non-eating and I am one who eats (ahari). By doing your puja with this naivedya (food to be offered to a deity) I want to obtain from you the non-eating stage (anahari pad)" (ibid.: 60). In the symbolism of the rite, the offering of food is actually a rejection of eating and the bondage that eating represents.

Phal puja, worship with fruit (phal), is the eighth and final part of the eightfold worship. A fruit is placed on the dot and crescent at the top of the diagram that represent final release. It should be noted that in naivedya puja the food, the eating of which is inherent to our unliberated state, is put at the vertex of the svastik, which symbolizes the round of birth and death through the four classes of unliberated beings; in effect, the worshiper leaves food precisely where it belongs (Cort 1989: 375-76; Humphrey and Laidlaw 1994: 128). The depositing of the fruit at the top of the diagram (representing the summit of the universe) then elevates the worshiper to the highest goal. Any of various fruits can be used. The fruit offering is associated with the ultimate "fruit" of spiritual effort, which is liberation; the sentiment of the associated verse is, "O Lord, by means of worshiping you with fruit, may I obtain the libertion which is the fruit of the highest spiritual endeavors" (Muktiprabhvijay n.d.: 61).

The offerings made in the agra puja phase of the rite can be seen as a kind of symbolic paragraph in which the worshiper's situation in the world is represented and his or her hoped-for liberation through renunciation is enacted. The svastik stands for samsar, the "from what" of liberation. Above it are represented the means of liberation, and above these, the ultimate goal of liberation, which is marked by the offering of fruit. Of special interest in this context is the offering of food. As we have seen, giving food in worship is giving up food in emulation of the Tirthankar. And indeed it is symbolically giving up the body itself, bodily existence being dependent upon eating and the very condition of worldly bondage. In the eightfold worship, therefore, adoration grades into tyag, relinquishment, and culminates with the symbolic shedding of all residues of worldly existence. With these offerings made, the eightfold worship is completed.

If the offerings have been made on the surface of the bhandar box they are simply left there. Periodically these materials are swept into the slot, where they fall into the box below. If the rite has been performed on a different surface, then the offerings can be removed later by the temple's pujari or pujaris. But whatever is done, the materials used in worship are not returned to the worshipers. As will be seen, this is a very important fact about Jain ritual culture.

After finishing the eightfold worship, and having said nisihi once more, one should perform bhav puja, which is mental or internal worship as opposed to the now-completed physical worship (dravya puja). The object of bhav puja is inward contemplation of the Jina and the qualities he represents. The essence of bhav puja is praise, and ideally it should take the form of the rite known as caitya vandan. Afterwards the worshiper leaves the temple; in doing so the worshiper should not turn his or her back on the Tirthankar.