Gandhi Before Gandhi

Author(s): Bipin Doshi, Priti Shah
Publisher: Jain Academy Educational Research Center Promotion Trust Mumbai

Page 107

GANDHI BEFORE GANDHI
Jain's way for exchanging forgiveness
Jains Contribution in the field of literature.
"We forgive all living beings. We ask all living beings to forgive us."
In literary activity, Jains have held a prominent position. Their scholars and philosophers have composed voluminous works on philosophy, logic, comparative religion, grammar, prosody, mathematics,
लाभक्षक
Jamaatasunadman Bananish dara dan Tasma AIDSUFER wal गयाकाणानामझदया ma ग्रहोसादनासका। TE
maana gamomi981 1679 arasläralanggu||
Such has been क्षमा वीरस्य भूषणम्
the case of the खामेमी सव्वे जीवा, people of India सव्वे जीवा खमंतु मे, from earliest मित्ती मे सव्वे भूएसु, times. Our वेर मज्झ न वेगई। physical
resistance in every instance has been
spasmodic under Ons gou dey of Sansar after perfonae ratka Il your f ace
the loading of tely or testly yugto orci
injustice, for the मिच्छामि दुक्क्डम
reason that in our
philosophy and religion there is neither curriculum nor science of war, only the holy teachings of lessons and principles that make for peace and brotherhood. Cruelty and reprisals have been charged upon us, but even in the paroxysm of such madness, overborne by greater power and cruelty and in the agonies of undeserved death and extermination, we still clung to the prayer of our holy faith, "We, forgive ail living beings, We ask all living beings to forgive us."
lexicography, music, history, biography, astronomy, etc., besides works on their ceremonies and rituals.
Out of the many authors, only a few need be mentioned here. Bhadrabahu Suri composed "Niryuktis" on the works of the Jain canon, also a work on astronomy. Devarddhi Gani, also known as the Kshamashramana, is the redactor of the sacred canon, 980 years after Mahavira, the last Arhat. Devarddhi seeing that all the canonical works were being lost in course of time caused them to be written down.
Before that time the sacred literature was handed down from master to
106