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PREFACE.
JAINA LAW.
As an individual's life is many-sided, so that of an aggregate of individuals has many aspects. The life of a nation or a community has its physical, material, moral and spiritual sides. Law is an essential constituent of the whole life of a community. Law being based on the most primary human instincts and being always a child of necessity, is a very sure index of the condition of the community. On one side, Law looks upon the material affairs of a people; on the other, it is linked with the most common moral maxims which govern its corporate existence. The Jainas, if they are not now, have been a united body of men and women, at least in the Past. They had a law of their own. It is not altogether lost. It is buried in the mass of our literature and traditions; but it is there all right. Our basic differences from our neighbours made it compulsory that we should evolve a system of jurisprudence, which
