Key of Knowledge

SR No.: 006702
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown
Publication Year: 1919
Total Pages: 1204
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 25 MB

Page 570

RESURRECTION.
ascension myth as given in the other two gospels; and it is unlikely that they would have kept silence on such a glorious event, if it were an historical fact. This circumstance alone is sufficient to show that the 'rising up to heaven' is a doctrinal allegory,* rather than an actual event, in the life of Jesus. The true import of the allegory will become clear when we come to deal with the Jaina view of moksha; here it suffices to point out that ascension only implies the attainment of the status of Godhood, i.e., Nirvana, or the rising up of the God-end of the see-saw of existence to the top.
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Probably the substratum of truth underlying the physical aspect of the ascension of Jesus is not more wonderful than the phenomenon of levitation. Finding
That the doctrine of resurrection is not an original Christian doctrine, or tenet, is well-known to students of comparative theology; but those who are not familiar with the subject will find the following observations of Mr. Joseph McCabe full of interest (see The Bankruptcy of Religion, p. 164):
"The death and resurrection of Christ are probably to the average believer the central and unique truth of the Christian religion. Now, every well-informed theologian has known for ages that in the Roman' world in which Christianity arose, the annual commemoration of the death and resurrection of a god was the most common religious feature. The Egyptian cult of Osiris, the Babylonian cult of Tammuz (or Adonis), and the Phrygian cult of Attis had celebrated this annual solemnity for unknown ages, and had, in the fusion of nations in the Roman Empire, spread it over the whole eastern world. The Greeks adopted the festival centuries before Christ was born; the Persian cult of Mithra also adopted it. It is safe to say that there was not a city of that old world, before the time of Christ, which had not one or more temples, of different religions, attracting full public attention to the annual celebration of the death and resurrection of a god."