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Preface
Has religion ever confused and confounded you? If so, this booklet is compiled just for you. It is our humble attempt to bring together a simple summary of the world's major spiritual paths.
Essence of World Religions
The primary source of this book is an article, an insert in the Hinduism Today newspaper of April 1993, and its earlier version. The article has been expanded by using several other sources and reviewing it with many people of different faiths. Most of the material of the introduction chapter is taken from the Parliament of world religion book.
The strength of this book is its simplicity. However this causes other problems. The complex and subtle distinctions and certain important exceptions of various religions are consciously set aside for the sake of simplicity. There are hundreds of books addressing deeper matters, but few of them have attempted a straightforward, summary.
By summarizing a few major beliefs of the great religions, we hope to highlight how their paths are similar and how they differ. Unless you are already a comparative religion expert, a leisurely hour with this book will endow you with a good grasp of the essential truths of every major faith practiced today.
The following basic information of each religion is compiled in this book:
- Founded - Founder
-Adherents
- Symbols
Sects
- Beliefs
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-Major Scriptures
- Synopses
- Holidays
The first edition of this book was compiled for the first generation of Young Jains of North America (YJA) for their first national convention in 1994. We believe that it is extremely important to understand the basic philosophy and values of all major world religions in order to properly understand Jain principles and ethics. With this idea in mind, the first edition of this booklet was compiled. The second edition was published in 2004, in which we have added religious holidays and modified certain information on each religion based on the feedback we have received. In this
