Mahavira and his Teaching

SR No.: 008019
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: C C Shah, Rishabhdas Ranka, Dalsukh Malvania
Publisher: Bhagwan Mahavir 2500th Nirvan Mahotsava Samiti
Publication Year: 1977
Total Pages: 509
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Biography, Religion, & Principle
File Size: 12 MB

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DR. HEIMO RAU
the Bhagavadgitā since he discovered this book of books during his stay in London.
The Gītā became Gandhiji's “Spiritual reference book”, his daily guide. It condemned inaction. It showed how to avoid evil, which accompanies all action. Selfless action is its central teaching: “Bear joy and pain, profit and loss, victory and defeat in like manner. Thus you should act, 0 Arjuna, without attachment, firmly in yoga, the same in victory or defeat.” For the Karma Yogin Gandhi the selfless deed was as a matter of course ahıṁsā, which he found again in Indian tradition especially in the Jain religion which impressed him very much in his childhood and youth. Selfless action and ahımsā belong to the most decisive principles of Gandhi's Weltanschauung which came to him from Indian tradition. Lord Mahāvjra
It was the knowledge of various religions which was handed down to Gandhiji by his parents that became the foundation for tolerance which guided him during his life time. His father and mother were not narrow and one-sided in their devotion to Vishnuism. They also performed pūjā before Shiva and took their children to various mandırs. Gandhiji's father especially, developed friendly relations with the Jain monks whom he invited for long discussions on religious and secular problems. The Jain monks, on their part, liked the non-Jain Gandhi household so much that they even accepted food from them. The close relations with the Jain “Weltanschauung” in which Mohandas participated, mostly as a silent listener, was of great importance to the growing boy. No other Indian community has evolved a practice of living without the use of force and killing (ahimsā), even with regard to the lowest living creature, as strictly and uncompromisingly as the Jains. As a reform religion in protest against the Brahmins and the castes of Hinduism, it had won importance and form in the Sixth century BC, at the same time as its sister religion of Buddhism. Unlike the Dharma and Sangha of Gautama Buddha the followers of Mahāvīra have