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ESSENTIAL PHILOSOPHY OF HINDUISM
BUDDHISM AND JAINISM.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,
From the mystic philosophy of India, we pass to the everyday philosophy of the three great sects of the East, the Hindus, the Buddhists and the Jains.
When I was a small boy, about eight years old, I used to go with my father to hear the sermons of & Jain monk who happened to visit our town in those days. He delivered his sermons in a lecture hall specially built by my community. On one day, we went to the lecture hall half an hour earlier than the appointed time. After taking our seats, I began to look with curiosity at some paintings on the walls of the lecture hall. One of them struck me most. It was ths picture of a man holding steadfast the branch of a huge banian tree in the midst of a large well and an elephant standing at the brink of the well and trying with its mighty trunk to catch the man. At the bottom of the well there was a huge
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