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CONFLUENCE OF OPPOSITES
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sional arresting of the downward movement from time to time. This is the reason why there are no Tirthamkaras in our midst to-day, and why there will be none for some time to come. The next Tirthamkara will appear when a better order has been re-established after a certain time (about 81500 years hence), according to the Jaina Scriptures.
The origin of Religion in a world that is eternal is out of the question. Whenever a Tirthamkara arises, He re-establishes the Scientific Truths about the nature of Life, and these Truths are collectively termed Religion. The Word of Instruction of the Tirthamkara is called Sruti, as distinguished from Smriti (memory, or what is worked out by the mind with the aid of memo. ry). Apta-vachanam (the word of a Professor, hence Tirthamkara) is descriptive, in a scientific way, of the exact nature of things as they exist in nature; but it is not argumentative. The real characteristics of the true Sruti have been described by me ere this; they all bear out its scientific nature. To-day men have the most fanciful notions concerning revelation, some say that it takes place only once before creation, some, that it proceeds from a Godhead in the high heavens, some, that it should be unintelligible in the nature of things, being the word of an infinite God. But all this is pure imagination. The character of true Sruti is described thus in the Permanent History of Bharatvarsha, with which you have already become familiar:
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