Gandhi Before Gandhi

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

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GANDHI BEFORE GANDHIA
Jainism. Many claim that it is older than Brahminism. Gautama, Sakyamuni mentioned, "I hear that many Jain monks received hospitality from you, and you must continue to furnish it to them." He spoke to them as Nigunta-tieless - they have no money; they are homeless wanderers as Jesus was. Jesus would have been called Jain had he lived in India.
When European scholars first began to investigate the history of Jainism, they were struck with the similarities between its ethical code and those of Buddhism; hence they thought that Jainism must be a branch of Buddhism. But thanks to the labors of Jacobi, Buhler, and Leumann, it is now conclusively proved that Jainism is an independent religion and is much older than Buddhism. At the advent of the Buddha the Jain sect had already attained a prominent position in the religious world of India.
Indian views on Religion and Philosophy.
In our country religion is not different from philosophy, and religion and philosophy do not differ from science. We do not say that there is a scientific religion or a religious science; we say that the two are identical. We do not use the English word religion because it implies a binding back, and conveys the idea of dependence, the dependence of a finite being upon an infinite, and in that dependence consists the happiness or bliss of the individual.
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With the Jains the idea is a bit more different. With them bliss consists not in dependence but in
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independence; the dependence is in the life of the world, and if that life of the world is a part of religion, then we may express the idea by the English word, but the life which is the highest life is that in which we are personally independent so far as binding or disturbing influences are concerned. In the highest state the soul, which is the highest entity, it is independent.
"What is the origin of universe, according to Jains?"
I have often been asked, "What is the origin of the universe, according to the Jain view?" We might as well ask; what is the origin of being? What is the source of God? Etc. Philosophy in the primitive state (logically, not chronologically) postulates an external, simple substance from which it attempts to explain the multiplicity of the complex universe. Philosophy in this sense assumes various forms. All of them attempt to interpret the law of causation, and in that attempt many fatigued, after the long mental strain, stop at some one thing, element, or principle (physical or metaphysical) beyond which they have no mental ability to go. Some, for instance, the Ionic philosophers, called it water, fire or air. Hindus called it "Bhramha"
Modern science evolves all life from the simple protoplasm. In tracing every effect to a cause, when they stop at