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Symbolism
There is another symbol of the Jainas, and that is the picture of the elephant and the seven blind men. The Jainas have many lecture halls in all parts of India. In towns and cities where numbers of the Jainas are living they build halls for the temporary residence of monks who go about teaching On the walls of those houses you will find several pictures; one is the same as that on my glass card.” When a small boy about eight years old, I was accustomed to attend with my father the sermons of the Jaina monks who visited our town from time to time in those days.
The sermons were delivered in the lecture hall built especially by our community.
On one occasion we went to the hall half an hour earlier than usual, which gave me ample time to look around, which I did with much interest and some curiosity at the paintings on the walls, one picture in particular impressed me and interested me more than all the other. It was a picture of a man suspended in the middle of a well by holding on to a branch of a tree which grew by the side of the well (many of you will recognize this picture as the same on my class card.)
A huge elephant stood at the brink of the
HO
vesna 119
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