Atmanandji Jainacharya Janmashatabdi Smarakgranth

Author(s): Mohanlal Dalichand Desai
Publisher: Atmanand Janma Shatabdi Smarak Trust

Page 150

INIVERYAL ME JAINISM
Dr. KALIDAS NAG
The auspicious centenary of the venerable Jainacharya Shri Atmananda, alias Muni Vijayananda, furnishes the occasion for a general stock-taking of what Jainism holds as its great legacies for India and the world. For India Jainism has given a succession of spiritual pioneers like Parasvanatha and Mahavira, religious reformers like Bhadrabahu and Sthulabhadra during the first millennium B. C. By the first century A. D. when Jainism finally divided into two great schools, Digambara and Svetambara, the spiritual and cultural influences of the religion have gone far beyond the limits of the land of its origin, Magadha, and spread out in the whole of India up to Kathiawad in the West and Mysore in the South. Kunda-Kund (3rd Century A. D.) and Devarddhi (5th century A. D.), Jinasena (8th century A. D.) and Hemchandra ( 12th Century (A. D.) are names revered not only by Jains but by all interested in Hindu thought, literature and culture. Even in the darkness of Indian mediaeval disintegration, the great reformer Yasovijaya (1624-1688) tried to unite the Digambaras and the Svetambaras by seeking to prove that Saintly life does not exclude life in the world." Lastly in our own days the great Jaina saint and teacher Vijayadharma Suri gave us valuable works in Sanskrit, Gujarati and Hindi and left us the priceless legacy of the Yashovijayji Jain Granthmala.
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Thus whatever may be the doctrinal differences between Jainism and other denominations of Hinduism, we are all grateful to the Jaina masters for their services to the cause of Indian culture and spirituality as well as towards the allieviation of human suffering through centuries. Dr. Winternitz has very justly observed in his History of Indian Literature (Vol. I. page 594-595) "The Jains have extended their activities beyond the sphere of their religious literature to a far greater
Shatabdi Granth ]
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