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Chapter 1
JAINISM AND ITS ANTIQUITY
The history of human thought discloses that man has been in constant search of truth and happiness. He wants to save himself from misery and pain. As he is a social being, his solution for his problems of happiness and pain has to be with reference to his society or the world at large. He has a soul and a body. In any experience of happiness or misery, pleasure or pain, the question involved is one either with reference to the soul or the body, or both. Besides, there is the Universe. The relationship between man and the Universe has been the subject matter both of science and religion, the common objective of which has been the search for truth.
Science has concerned itself with the discovery of order in the phenomena of nature. It seeks to formulate laws inherent in natural events and to account for them in an analytical manner without recourse to the mysterious or the mythological. Though the achievements of science in the realm of the external have been excitingly remarkable, the problems of the reality and the meaning of life still remain outside its perview.
Early religion has tried to answer the essential questions relating to the relation that exists between Man and the Universe, man and his duties, his goal of life and the path that leads to its attainment. Many saints and sages have answered these questions from time to time by precept and
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