their Tirthakars, especially for
their favourite Parasnath. They have also many Hindu practices. They
observe the Diwali, Rakshabandhan and Holi festivals; they say that
at the Diwali the last Tirthakar Mahavira attained beatitude and the
gods rained down jewels; the little lamps now lighted at Diwali are
held to be symbolic of these jewels. They tie the threads round the
wrist on Rakshabandhan to keep off evil spirits. They worship Sitala
Devi, the Hindu goddess of smallpox, and employ Brahmans to choose
names for their children and fix the dates of their wedding and other
ceremonies, though not at the ceremonies themselves.

6. Disposal of the dead.

The caste burn the dead, with the exception of the bodies of young
children, which are buried. The corpse is sometimes placed sitting in
a car to be taken to the cremation ground, but often laid on a bier
in the ordinary manner. The sitting posture is that in which all the
Tirthakars attained paradise, and their images always represent them
in this posture. The corpse is naked save for a new piece of cloth
round the waist, but it is covered with a sheet. The Jains do not
shave their hair in token of mourning, nor do they offer sacrificial
cakes to the dead. When the body is burnt they bathe in the nearest
water and go home. Neither the bearers nor the mourners are held to
be impure. Next day the mourning family, both men and women, visit
Parasnath's temple, lay two pounds of Indian millet before the god
and go home. [167] But in the Central Provinces they whitewash their
houses, get their clothes washed, throw away their earthen pots and
give a feast to the caste.

7. Social rules and customs.

The Parwars abstain from eating any kind of flesh and from drinking
liquor. They have a _panchayat_ and impose penalties for offences
against caste rules like the Hindus. Among the offences are the
killing of any living thing, unchastity or adultery, theft or other
bad conduct, taking cooked food or water from a caste from which
the Parwars do not take them, and violation of any rule of their
religion. To get vermin in a wound, or to be beaten by a low-caste
man or with a shoe, incidents which entail serious penalties among
the Hindus, are not offences with the Parwars. When an offender is
put out of caste the ordinary deprivation is that he is not allowed
to enter a Jain temple, and in serious cases he may also not eat nor
drink with the caste. The Parwars are ge