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THE CENTRAL JAIN ORIENTAL LIBRARY.
By Sri C. S. K. Jain, M. A.
Late Shree Rabindra Nath Tagore, the famous literary personality of international reverence, has rightly remarked that 'literature intimately connects man with man, the far with the near and the past with the present.' Had it remained merely the best thought, expressed in the best and attractive manner, having a momentous effect, it would not have received a value, higher than a table-talk, only to be forgotten the next moment It is this special characteristic which compelled mankind to get such expressions preserved. Really civilazation starts from the day, man has learnt the way to preserve his thoughts for future observance, meditation, guidance and proper use. Written records, mostly books, have proved them. selves to be the most competent agents in this respect; and so, the word 'literature' has been confined for a collection of written works in any language.
In course of innumerable years of its march toward perfect civilization, mankind has been found always a devotee of literature, but with some narrow-mindedness. Every country, cast, creed or race thought it a right judgment to suppose its own literature, the most valuable of the rest. Sometimes racial or religious conflicts goaded them to satanism, resulting in destruction of such literatures which do not concur with their own way of thinking. Even moral degradation, and indifference to learning caused peoples to extinguish the highlights of their own forefathers. Those who tried to safegaurd such ancestral valuables from the furies of devillish actions, hid them in such a way that it never saw the sunlight again. Some virtully faced living graves, Aames of burning hearths and even the regular actions of natural denuding agents. General negligence is not 'to be less blamed for this devastation. Between the teeth of an army of demons, it is not astonishing to loose the best part of our literature; and what is left, should be embraced as the remains of a chain of continuous destruction,
