A Cultural Tale Of The Universe
Information management and communication patterns in India's religious and cultural, and scholarly traditions.
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Jainism is one of India’s three classical religions, along with Buddhism and Hinduism. Though older than Buddhism by a generation, the two religions arose and first spread in north-eastern India and have much in common. Both Buddhism and Jainism aim to offer practitioners a path to follow that leads from the painful cycle of endless re-births to liberation from all suffering. Both religions also rejected many of the practices and ideas of early Hinduism, particularly its core ritual of a sacrifice that involved the killing of animals, preaching instead a doctrine of non-violence. Today, non-violence, the commitment to an ethic that regards all life, animal and human, as inviolate, continues to be the heart of Jain practice and belief.
This documentary illuminates the core ideas of Jainism and the founding figures of Jainism, the Jinas, ‘Conquerors” or Tirthankars, and the various spaces they sanctify. The Jinas having achieved liberation and escaped from the world in which we live, are nonetheless considered to remain accessible to us as objects of our devotion. They are accessible to their worshippers through their teachings and their images, although some Jains reject image worship. Images of the Jinas and temples are said to exist throughout the vast reaches of the cosmos. We see them carefully depicted on painted maps of the Jain Universe. Closer to home they are worshipped at famous pligrimage sites and in private domestic shrines. This document brings together paintings of the Jinas, depictions of many kinds of Jain sacred spaces, as well as illustrated manuscripts of Jain sacred texts.
A Theatre For Millions of Souls
For the Jains, the cosmos from a very long time has been similar to a gigantic theatre where each soul plays it’s own role. They travel across the ocean of Samsara, struggling from one re-birth to another, until the time comes when they are liberated, and finally with the spiritual perfection of the ‘Siddhas’.
The Jains make no distinction between this vision of the transcendental world and the experience of life. Whatever is fated for the souls occurs in a world which has been made known to us by astronomical, geographical and other observations, and which thinkers of every Indian community from the very earliest times have tried to interpret. It consists of countless rings of seas and continents, one inside the other, upon which millions of stars shed their light.
In the middle is the circular island of Jambudvipa (continent of the rose apple tree), and in the very centre of that island is Mt. Meru, with its two suns and moons. To the south of the island is the land of Bharata - India - bounded by the Himalaya mountains, crossed by the great rivers, and adorned by princely capitals where civilised men who can profit from the teachings of the Jinas. Jain Cosmology has inspired many descriptions of this kind. There is also a tradition of manuscript illustration more than 1,000 years old, which despite its age remains amazingly fresh.
The Jains make no distinction between this vision of the transcendental world and the experience of life. Whatever is fated for the souls occurs in a world which has been made known to us by astronomical, geographical and other observations, and which thinkers of every Indian community from the very earliest times have tried to interpret. It consists of countless rings of seas and continents, one inside the other, upon which millions of stars shed their light.
In the middle is the circular island of Jambudvipa (continent of the rose apple tree), and in the very centre of that island is Mt. Meru, with its two suns and moons. To the south of the island is the land of Bharata - India - bounded by the Himalaya mountains, crossed by the great rivers, and adorned by princely capitals where civilised men who can profit from the teachings of the Jinas. Jain Cosmology has inspired many descriptions of this kind. There is also a tradition of manuscript illustration more than 1,000 years old, which despite its age remains amazingly fresh.
