Heart of Jainism

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

Page 37

CHAPTER II
HISTORICAL SUMMARY
EARLY Indian history as yet resembles those maps of our grandfathers in which
Geographers for lack of towns
Drew elephants on pathless downs.
The genius of the people of India does not lie in historical research to them metaphysical thought is the chief end of man, and they are content to leave to Western scholars the task of filling in the large gaps of unexplored country in their history. It is the misfortune of Jainism that so much of its life-story falls within these unexplored tracts of time, and, though the Jaina have kept historical records of their own, it is very difficult to correlate these records with known facts in the world's history.
Modern research seems to have proved that this great monastic fraternity arose at the end of the sixth century B.C., and one of its great claims to interest lies in the fact that enshrined in its rules and precepts it has, like some slow moving glacier, brought down to this materialistic century the thoughts of a time when men, ignoring the present, were ready to stake their all on a future life. Originating amongst a people whose trade was war, it has laid greater emphasis on the duty of mercy and the evils of killing than any sect save the Friends; its founder was an aristocrat, but it has met with greatest acceptance amongst the middle classes; and though an unworldly faith, whose highest precept it is to discard all wealth as dross, it has nevertheless won its adherents from a class famed throughout India for their love of gain and their reluctance to part with