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26 Jaina Religion: Its Historical journey of evolution
separate by being called atheists? In fact, Hinduism is not a single religion or philosophy but is the name of broader tradition or is a collection of traditions of different thoughts and different ways of moral or spiritual endeavour. This includes all, such as theism-atheism, dualism-non-dualism, pravṛtti-nivṛtti, and knowledge-action. It assembles together all these i.e. right from the initial characteristics of Nature-worship to the great heights of non-dualistic thought. Thus Hinduism in that sense is not a dharma as Judaism, Christianity or Islam is. Hinduism is a composite tradition or a cultural stream, which includes many other tributaries.
Thus, Jaina and Buddhist religions cannot be understood as absolutely different from Hindu tradition. The Jaina and the Buddhist traditions are followers of the same spiritual thought as that of Upanisadic sages. The distin-guishing characteristics of these is that they worked for the upliftment of the down-trodden classes of Indian society, and paved the way for liberating Indian society from caste by birth, ritualism and priesthood. They expounded a religion for the masses of India, established it on moral values rather than on rituals. And they liberated Indian society from the religious exploitation by the priestly class. They are not outsiders. They are sons of the Indian soil. The
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