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GLORY OF JAINISM
SHRI CHIMANLAL J. SHAH, M.A.
Of all Indological studies, Jainism has been particularly unfortunate in that the little that is done for it stands in vivid contrast with the vast undone.
We shall not attempt to relate here, neither shall we venture to sketch in outline, the mighty developments of the dogmas, the institutions and the doctrines of this great religion. Ours will be an attempt to follow the fortunes of a people, stout and sturdy, great and glorious, both in making a history for themselves and for their religion, and to estimate, in however tentative and fragmentary a fashion, the intrinsic worth of their contribution, particularly to the rich and fruitful cultural stream of India.
"The history of ancient India," says a modern historian, "is a history of thirty centuries of human culture and progress. It divides itself into several distinct periods, each of which, for a length of several centuries, will compare with the entire history of many a modern people." In these "thirty centuries of human culture and progress", the Jaina contribution is a solid synthesis of many-sided developments in art, architecture, religion, morals and the sciences; but the most important achievement of the Jaina thought is its ideal of Ahimsa-non-violence-towards which, as the Jainas believe, the present world is slowly, though imperceptibly, moving. It was regarded as the goal of all the highest practical and theoretical activities, and it indicated the point of unity amidst all the diversities which the complex growth inhabited by different peoples produced.
It is really difficult, nay impossible, to fix a particular date for the origin of Jainism. To the Jainas, Jainism has been revealed again and again in every one of these endless succeeding periods of the world by innumerable Tirthankaras. Of the present age the first Tirthankara was Rsabha and the last two were Páráva and Mahāvīra. Nevertheless, modern research has brought us at least to that stage, wherein we can boldly proclaim all these worn-out theories about Jainism being a latter offshoot of Buddhism or Brahmanism as gross ignorance or, to repeat, as erroneous misstatements. On the other hand, we have progressed a step 1. Dutt, Ancient India, p. 1.
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