Heart of Jainism

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

Page 23

INTRODUCTION
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through its veins and is invigorating it, this she seeks to gauge. She would fain register, and not unsympathetically, its pulse-beats and its heart-throbs. For the execution of this self-imposed task Mrs. Stevenson has special qualifications. More than eight years ago, on her arrival as a bride in Aḥmadābād, she and her husband visited with me the large Jaina temple erected in this city so recently as 1848, through the munificence of Seth Haţthisiṁha. We were on that occasion conducted past the enclosing cloisters (bhamatī) with their fifty-two small shrines to the inner court, and then admitted to the temple itself, passing through first the open porch (mandapa) and next the hall of assembly (sabhā mandapa), till we stood on the very threshold of the adytum (gabhāro), and there we witnessed the ceremonial waving of lights (ārati). The pathos of this service and its sadness made a deep impression, and from that evening Mrs. Stevenson has bcen a keen and constant student of Jainism. Her knowledge of the Gujarāti language has enabled her to acquire much information at first hand both from the Jaina pandits who have for years assisted her in her research-work, and from the vernacular text-books which have of late been issuing from the local printing-presses. Her kindly sympathies have won her many friends in the Jaina community, and have even procured her a welcome entrée into the seclusion of a Jaina nunnery. Time and again shc has been present by invitation at Jaina functions seldom witnessed by any foreigner. Her long residence in Kāțhiāwād has afforded her opportunities for repeated visits to those marvellous clusters of stately temples that crown the holy hills of Girnār and Abū and Satruñjaya. In her admirable Notes on Modern Jainism, severely simple notes published five years ago, Mrs. Stevenson gave us a first instalment of the rich fruits of her patient research, but since then she has been able to glean a more abundant harvest. The contribution that shę now offers to the public will prove simply
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