Online events, social service, puja at home mark Mahavir Jayanti

Shreya Tinkhede | TNN | Apr 7, 2020, 04:51 IST

Nagpur: At a time when social distancing has become essential to check the spread of Covid-19, social media is proving to be a handy tool even for religious occasions. The Jain community, which usually organizes daylong celebrations, processions and various cultural programmes on Mahavir Jayanti, the birth anniversary of Lord Mahavir, mostly celebrated it online while many offered prayers from home and did social service.
Rashtriya Pulak Jain Chetna Manch and Rashtriya Jagruti Mahila Manch invited online entries for drawing, quiz and various other competitions. Attractive prizes will be presented to the winners.
Live abhishek and puja was telecast on Paras and Jinwani channel from Shantitara Bhagyauday Sagar. Devotees followed the teachings of Pranasagar Maharaj who urged them to begin their day by waking up early in the morning. They later offered puja and prayers to Lord Mahavir at their homes. People of the community rang bells and did Shankha Naad (conch blowing) at 8 in the morning.
Richa Jain, national working president of the manchs, said, “As per message given by our gurus, we all woke up early, rang bells and offered prayers to mark the beginning of the auspicious occasion.”
“We watched live telecast of the puja and abhishek, then offered prayers to Lord Mahavir at our homes,” said Ramesh Udepurkar, a Jain devotee.
The festival was also an occasion to contribute to the society. Over 5,000 ladoos and food items were distributed among police, NMC workers, sanitation workers serving the needy amid the lockdown. Digambar Jain Mahasamiti members distributed food grains and other necessities to people from slum areas.
“It’s a very special occasion for the Jains. We dedicated our day to offering prayers and celebrating it by distributing grains to needy people,” said Sunil Jain.
Adding to this, his wife Neeta said, “We performed aarti around 6pm and prayed for freedom from the pandemic. We couldn’t go out to celebrate with our community members and missed the grand procession, but nation and safety comes first,” she said.