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Jainism and Modern Age
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munity in which this philosphy spread were merchants and traders and partly because they did not travel beyond India, or even not in all parts of India, this part of their philosophy, though very noble was not fully practised. We find amongst the Jains the 'richest and the wealthiest families of this country. This fact could be reconciled by the fact Mahāvira taught two different sets of observances for the Şramaq and the Șrāvaka, the monk and the layman.
Moreover wealth in itself is nothing, if it is not related to human welfare, to the betterment of man. Mahāvira insists on Dāna (charity) and also the various phases of man's disinterestedness in outer things. The very relationship of inner life with outer world is such that the possession and the possessed try to get over the better of each other. So the way of the Jain arhat was to get gradual emancipation from this bondage of Karma, Jain way of getting lighter by discarding the weight of this bondage, the process of shedding-off' (Karma-Nirjarā) is what is advocated by modern western psychotherepists also. The world is too much with us' bemoaned Wordsworth and exclaimed “What man has made of man'. So did Indian poets : Chandidāsa said "Man is the highest truth' (Sabar oper manus satya, tahar oper neyi). Keshvasut said "Man has made man so low ! (Narech Kela heen kiti nar). Maithilisharan Gupta sang : ‘Manuşaya ho manuş ya ke liye maro' (You are a man, die for a man). Jainism preached this humanism. If we shall not share our possessions, we shall be eating ourselves, Mahāvira, 2500 years ago, pointed out the way : 'If man has to survive, he has to respect every other man, irrespetive of caste, colour, creed, community or class'.
Let us remember Mahāvīra and try to learn from him and gather the ray in our own small gardens of hearts, in the hope that some seeds would sprout; some buds would blossom. Great men elevate, their memory ennobles.
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