Gandhi Before Gandhi

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

Page 120

GANDHI BEFORE GANDHI
Hindu and Jain Scriptures bear ample testimony to this - which to the average Christian reader are nothing but myths. While the Bible is to him a veritable record of truth, we will proceed from this standpoint, and prove conclusively that the most valuable and complete notices of the ancient trade of India are in the Bible.
late these handicraftsmen, for whose works the whole world has been ceaselessly pouring its bullion for three thousand years into India, and who, for all the marvelous tissues and embroidered work, have found no water steam to move the machine, nor poisoned any air; whose skill and individual training of countless generations has developed to the highest perfection; now these hereditary handicraftsmen are being gathered from everywhere; from their community in hundreds and thousands to the colossal mills of Bombay to drudge in gangs to manufacture piece-goods, in competition with Manchester, in the production of which they are no more intellectually or morally concerned than the grinder of a barrel "tune in turns out."
Bible-Confirms the ancient trade of India!
India's significant commercial connections with world
The arts and sciences of India are not modern. Their origin is hidden in pre-historic times. Religion and philosophy have been the great contributions of India to the world, and they have drawn scholars and philosophers to her in times, ancient and modern. Is it improbable then, that Jesus, too, might have visited India? But if he did, how, especially in times when there were no conveniences for traveling? The ancient commerce of India with other countries had brought her people in close connection with those of others, who went to India either by sea or by the caravan route. Many people are skeptical about there having any interconnection, in those times, between India and the countries around the Mediterranean, but careful investigations of scholars have conclusively shown that India's gold and silver, precious stones, spices and silks had always attracted people of other countries to her. The
Moses about 1500 B.C., in Genesis II. 11-12, describing the first head, Pison, of the river of Eden says: "That is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. *** There is b'dellium and the onyx stone." B'dellium is the gum resin of two varieties, both natives of Sindh in India; cinnamon mentioned in Proverbs VII. 17, and in Song of Solomon IV. 14, is the product of Ceylon. In Numbers XXIV, 6, Balaam compares the camp of Israel to "A garden by the riverside as the trees of lign-aloes which the Lord hath planted, and as cedar trees beside the waters." This lignaloes is the most precious of all perfumes known in Sanskrit, Agaru, and in the Hebrew Ahalim and Ahaloth. In the Song of Solomon (Circa B.C.
1000) IV. 13-14, mention is made, besides of myrrh, aloes, cinnamon, frankincense and calamus, of camphire saffron and spikenard, in this and also in I. 14,
camphire, the Hebrew copher, is O the Egyptian hennah, a
native of East India. The saffron, in the Hebrew is karkan, the Sanskrit