a Jaina woman prostrates herself at her husband‘’s feet and worships him. (The sentence in the English wedding service where the husband says to the wife ‘With my body I thee worship’ comes as a terrible shock to an old-fashioned Jaina gentleman!) During the day the wife prepares her husband’s meal and only eats when he has finished; and in the evening, when he comes home tired, she massages him.
iii. VaiyāvaċċaKarma may also be worked off by another ‘austerity’ (Vaiyāvaċċa), service rendered to ascetics, or to the poor, the helpless and the suffering, by giving them food, water, shelter, or clothing. All the friends of the Jaina desire to see them taking their proper share in the uplift of India, and perhaps one might suggest that this belief of theirs in the reflex benefit of helping others provides them with a powerful text from which to preach the duty of social service.
iv. SvādhyāyaStudy is another interior austerity (Svādhyāya). The Jaina lay great emphasis on the duty of studying their doctrines and their scriptures by reading, catechizing, repetition, meditation and preaching, but they declare that there is no duty that their laity and especially their college graduates more neglect. Rich Śvetāmbara laymen often pay a paṇḍit to teach their sādhus during the long intervals of the day when, having finished their begging round and having nothing else to do, they spend their time in idleness; but they complain bitterly that the ascetics are generally too lazy to learn. A Sthānakavāsī monk may not study with a paid paṇḍit, only with one who gives his services freely; but they also show little desire to learn. The whole question, however, of the education of their monks is now occupying the attention of the educated laymen of both
of women in the East; for every foolish act of militancy was chronicled in the papers, and men who were formerly anxious to educate their wives grew afraid to do so. Perhaps the Western women in their selfishness scarcely realized the solidarity of the modern world. One might almost say that every window they broke in England shattered the prospect of some Indian woman gaining a wider outlook on life; and every time they chained themselves up, they riveted the fetters more firmly on their suffering Oriental sisters.
