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Jainism
recognised anchorites, vānaprasthas or forest reculses. This was more especially a Jaina order, severely enforced by all their Bodhas and particularly in the 6th century B.C., by the 24th and last, Mahāvira of 598-526 B.C. This ascetic order continued in Brāhmanism and Buddhism throughout distant Baktria and Daccia, as seen in our study I and Sacred Books of the East, vols. XXII and XLV”. Further he remarks, “instead of Jainism being, as was formerly supposed, an offshoot of Buddhism, it is shown to extend as far back as 3000 B.C. It is found flourishing along side the nature worship of the rude tribes in Northern India". 1
In the words of S. N. Gokhale "Ahimsā is the keynote of Jainism, a philosophy which comes from pre-Aryan? days”. And says Dr. Kali Das Nag, “No one even amongst those who profess to know history knows that lacs and crores of years before Buddba, not only one or two but several Jaina Tirtharkaras had preached the gospel of Ahimsā. Jainism is very ancient religion and it has given much to Indian culture"3. Dr. Jacobi was also of te opinion that Jainism was related to the primitive philosophy of India. Speaking about the development of the atomic theory by the Indians, another eminent scholar says, “In the oldest philosophical speculation of the Brāhmins as preserved in the Upanisads we find no traco of an atomic theory, and it is therefore controverted in the Vedānta Sūtra which claims systematically to interpret the teachings of the Upan işads. Nor it is acknowledged in the
1 Short studies in the Science of Comparative Religions, p. 243-244 and Chapter I.
2 Indian Theosophist. 3 Anekānta X, 6, p. 226. 4 Jain Gazette, 1922, p. 46.
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