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THE JAINA GAZETTE
VOL. XXII. No. 4.
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MADRAS APRIL 1926.
MAN AND THE WAY.
BY
WHOLE No. 250,
Mrs. Rhys Davids, D. Litt., M. A.
THE
HE Editor has asked me to speak to readers of the Jaina Gazette. I am troubled at this honour. For in that he has been so kind as to send me recent numbers of the Gazette, I note that the contents are addressed to those readers as Jainis by writers wise about Jainism. Now my work for over thirty years has lain along other lines. It left me little or no time to study the history of old, or the ideas of present Jainism. There was so much pioneer work to do in my own field, that even a comparative study of the two fields had to be put aside. I am therefore not competent to write as one wise about Jainism to readers in so far as they are Jains.
Nevertheless I take courage and speak, for I have been for many years working with mother-thoughts about men and women. And by degrees the way and the history of men and women, as Jainis or as Buddhists, or as of the East or the West, has become of less than the first importance. An eminent French politician has lately said: We should think not in French, but in European Even that is not enough. We should think in 'Man,' we should think of men as Man.' Then it is that surface thoughts of creed and church, of party and country, nay, of continent shrival and
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Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
