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Indian Ethnicity and Religious Heritage
mixture of salt with water he explained how the dynamic force of Atman pervades the whole universe and informed him that his real self was that Atman. "Tat twam Asi, Swetketo" he said. This story suggest that the discovery of Atman was a post Vedic event. This fact gets further corroboration from other sources too. Jain scriptures say that Indrabhuti Gautam was a great scholar in the Vedas. Knowing that Lord Mahavira had visited his twon attracting many visitors he was curious to know who this saint was. When he approached Mahavir he was welcomed and told that he had a doubt in his mind whether there existed any thing like Atman. This resulted in a lengthy dialogue, which convinced Gautam that Atma did exist. Gautam thereafter become Mahavira's principle devotee. The Jainism and Buddhism thereafier buit up the whole of their metaphysics on how to develop the Atmic force so that your own Atam becomes Paramatma. Unlike Shankar's Adwait approach, both these streams of thought have an approach, which is purely dualistic. This is another eveidence to show how much "distinct
and apart" they are from Hinduism. Jain Education International
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