Book Title: Economics of Mahaveera
Author(s): Mahapragna Acharya
Publisher: Adarsh Sahitya Sangh

Previous | Next

Page 155
________________ MAHAVIRA AND ECONOMICS 139 unsuccessful. The shortcoming was that his thoughts were devoid of spiritualism. If non-violence and spiritualism were associated with his thinking, Marx would have been a great thinker of the age. He ignored non-violence in achieving the objectives. His principal theory became dominant and that is why the experiment of socialism failed. Happiness and Prosperity The theories of Keynes as well cannot be considered totally invalid. He visualised comfort and prosperity while he missed a significant truth. It is not inevitable that with the possession of resources and comforts, one automatically becomes happy. We have seen highly prosperous people afflicted with sadness. Even if people become prosperous stress continues and does not get eradicated. Descending from the heavens, Indra and Indrani came to a tiny village which was very poor. The residents were clothed in rags. Indrani felt pity for them. She appealed to Indra: “Maharaj, please relieve these poor people from their sufferings. They are under great distress.” Indra said that she did not know a reality: nobody becomes happy by amassing wealth. And yet, Indrani did not give up her request. Accordingly, Indra had to accede to the demand of the insistent consort. Indra filled the houses and streets of the village with gold and silver. In the morning, when people woke up they saw heaps of wealth all around. People collected the riches hurriedly and all became prosperous. After a few days, Indra and Indrani came there again. Indrani became very happy seeing the prosperous village. But she found that the village people were not happy, they were rather miserable. Indra asked them why were they looking so sad. One of them replied with a sense of big frustration. “Nobody knows whose evil eyes had fallen on this village," he said, and continued, “Here everybody has everything. All have become owners. There were no servants. We do not know to whom do we show our wealth? Here everybody has large stocks of precious jewels. Even after possessing so much of wealth, we are not happy. On the Jain Education International For Personal & Private Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

Loading...

Page Navigation
1 ... 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176