Book Title: Encyclopaedia Of Jainism
Author(s): P C Nahar, K C Ghosh
Publisher: Satguru Publications

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Page 577
________________ exerts a decisive intiuence on his whole moral nature. Of course there is no harm in admitting the fact that these observances are not a proof of religion unless genuine ; for they may be mere spurious imitations. But it must be also confessed on all hands that if a man abstains from all sorts of observances, it is a decisive proof that in his case his religious necd is in a dormant state, if it exists at all. We do not of course subscribe to the view that all who take part in such observances, as handed down to them by tradition or scripture, are actuated by the same heart-felt needs ; for in this, as as in other cases, men's motives may differ very widely, but to estimate the value of a thing, it is injudicious to confine one's attention upon these only. To do this we must take into account the psychological origin of these. And we believe that in the case of Jainisin, the root of these lies deep in the fact of yearning after a state of liberation-a state of beatitude and bliss,--a state of omniscience of whose sublimity one's imagination has ormed a conception, and which he feels

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