Heart of Jainism

Author(s): Mrs Sinclair Stevenson
Publisher: Mrs Sinclair Stevenson

Page 16

PREFATORY NOTE
but the technical words they used in discussing their faith were sometimes of Gujarati, sometimes of Magadhi and sometimes of Sanskrit origin. This 'use', which seems to be one of the idioms of Jainism, the writer has tried to reproduce by transliterating the actual words employed, believing that thus her work would retain more of the character of field-study and have less of the odour of midnight oil than if she had standardized and sanskritized all the terms.
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But whatever language they spoke, every one whom the writer asked showed the same readiness to help; indeed almost every fact recorded in this book owes its presence there to the courtesy of some Jaina friend, and every page seems to the writer water-marked with some one's kindness. The difficulty of the task has sometimes seemed overwhelming; but never perhaps does the magnificent old motto Dominus illuminatio mea prove a greater inspiration than when one is attempting sympathetically to decipher an alien creed; and to no one does it, together with its sister-saying Magna est veritas et praevalebit, ring a happier carillon of hope than to the foreign missionary.
MARGARET STEVENSON.
DUBLIN, St. Patrick's Day, 1915.