Agama And Tripitaka Comparative Study

Author(s): Nagaraj Muni
Publisher: Today and Tomorrows Printers and Publishers

Page 19

INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST HINDI EDITION
Difference and non-difference both are the Dharma (characteristic) of vision or the outlook. Wherever you look for them, you will find them. The Jain and Buddhist traditions abound both in differences and non-differences. Because of the two-sided nature of the vision, we are able to arrive at the Real. The aim and object of the present venture is to attain this Real. It has been my endeavour to keep apart from the prejudice of one or the other in order to arrive at the Real.
Life has been accustomed to think in terms of the alphabet of synthesis and to traverse the path of unity. How then can I write otherwise? The present work 'Agama and Tripitaka. Eka Anušilanā is one more link in the chain of my other work Acārya Bhikşu aur Mahatma Gandhi, Jain Darsana aura Ādhunika Vijñána, 'Ahiumsa-Paryaveksana' To be frank, I had never had a plan to write anything comparative, but it has come in the most natural way. A good thingh that emerges automatically is superior to a good thing which is the outcome of concious en deavour.
A literary creation that establishes some fact is not bad, but it cannot be said to be of very high order. There are already many works in different languages on Jaina as well as Buddhist tradition. When we represent them in our own language or order it does not make a new creation. For generations, this work of representation goes on. But in a comparative or analytical research work, there emerges a new outlook, a new outcome. A reader finds in it many things not known to him, never ready by him. The flow of knowledge shoots out in many currents and moves ahead. This has been one of the basic inspirations which has especially taken me in this direction.
From the days when I was engaged in my studies, a notion got established in my heart that it would be really worth while, enjoyable and unprecedented to enter upon a comparative study of Mahavira and Buddha. Occasionally, to give vent to it, I wrote even short papers. But during the past five or six years I took total leave of every thing else and devoted myself wholey to this assignment.
As my structure started coming up, I could perceive, mar y of my predecessors having tread the same path. Some had gone a bare two steps and some about ten. Their goal was different from