Heart of Jainism

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

Page 21

INTRODUCTION
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the 'white-clad' and the 'space-clad' votaries and the non-idolatrous Sthānakavāsīs, on the formation of the Jaina Siddhānta or Canon, and on the Councils of Pāšaliputra and Vallabhi that legislated regarding the Jaina Scriptures : also the highest linguistic scholarship has been brought to bear upon translations of a few of the Sacred Books of the Jainas. For all this good work accomplished, students of Jainism cannot be too grateful. But one whole department of this large subject still awaits elucidation. One can learn much concerning early Jainism and of its development in mediaeval times : but modern Jainism, its present-day practices and its present-day teachings, these still remain very much a terra incognita. Bühler's Indian Sect of the Fainas and an article by Dr. Burgess on the Jaina Temple Ritual tell us something, but very much remains untold.
And just here a necessary caution should be given. It is not always safe to assume that the meaning a technical term bore in early times remains the same in the Jainism of to-day. For instance, the term Tirtha-kara, or Tirthankara, would seem originally to have denoted the man who has made the passage' across the ocean of worldly illusion (saisāra), who has reached that further shore where he is, and will for ever be, free from action and desire : thus, the man who has attained unto a state of utter and absolute quiescence, and has entered into a rest that knows no change nor ending, a passionless and ineffable peace. But no Jaina whom I have ever consulted has assigned this meaning to the word Tirthankara. Widely different is the explanation given me by those whom I have asked, and they all agree. A Tīrthankara, they say, is one who has made ', has founded, the four 'tīrthas'. But what then is a tirtha ? Tirtha, derived from the root tr, 'to save', is, they affirm, a technical term indicating the means of salvation', the means par excellence; and the caturvidha sangha, or that 'fourfold