Contributed by Peter Flügel
Pravin K. Shah writes about the Five Great Vows taken by Jain monks and nuns. The information is provided by the Jainism Literature Center, associated with the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University.
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~pluralsm/affiliates/jainism/jainedu/5greatvows.htm
Dressed as a bride, a young woman is carried by her relatives to the initiation ceremony – dīkṣā. After the keśa-loca rite, the nun initiating her marks a svastika on her newly bald head in sandalwood paste. The new nun wears decorated robes, in contrast to the plain robes of her established colleagues. The nuns wear the mouth-cloth attached to their ears, which shows they are Śvetāmbara Sthānakvāsins or perhaps Terāpanthins. Based in Mysore, Karnataka Kannada News TV reports on 16 May 2010 on a renunciation ceremony performed in North India. The languages used in this YouTube video are Hindi and Prakrit.
This 2007 hymn on YouTube is a Sanskrit stotra to the 21st Jina, Naminātha or Lord Nami. The sound is accompanied by pictures of statues of Jinas and monks of various Jain sects. The plain statues of nude Jinas with closed eyes and the naked monks belong to Digambara sects. The white-robed mendicants are Śvetāmbara Mūrtipūjakas. The monks and nuns with mouth-cloths attached to their ears are from either the Terāpanthin or Sthānaka-vāsīn Śvetāmbara sects.