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HISTORY OF JAINISM AFTER MAHAVIRA
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the expanded educational facilities of modern times. A majority of them is still engaged in banking, trade and commerce, business and industry, but the numbers of those employed in the different learned professions, including letters, journalism, teaching, law, medicine and engineering, and the civil and even military services, are not inconsiderable.
Thus, during the past two thousand and five hundred years, since the nirvāņa (in 527 B.C.) of Lord Mahāvīra, Jainism, the religion of the śramana Tīrthankaras, has passed through many and varied vicissitudes notwithstanding which it has continued to develop and succeeded in preserving its integrity and maintaining its significance against heavy odds. This the oldest living religious system, at least of civilized India, even if its followers constitute a minority community though a fairly influential one, has its own utility and possesses vast possibilities in the context of the present day world problems, be they spiritual, social, economic or political, collective or individual.
