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desire to indulge in unrestrained sensual pleasures and the greed to acquire and possess more and more power and pelf tended to awaken the brute in man and goad it into fury. And, in the face of this inhuman fury, humanity has often found itself paralysed, It was, therefore, left to the great teachers who, renouncing even the very idea of mundane pleasures, devoted themselves heart and soul to the eradication of inhuman tendercies from hurnan society and helped it to regain itself. Again and again, in different times and lands, such masters have been born to help mankind.
Among these, the Jaina Tirthankaras of ancient India were the foremost in showing to suffering humanity the ahimsite way of life and peaceful coexistence, not only by precept but by their own practice and conduct. Beginning with Lord Rishabhadeva, twenty-four such Tirthankaras gave in their respective times this message of peace and good-will to the world. The last in this
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