Historical Facts About Jainism

Author(s): Lala Lajpatrai
Publisher: Jain Associations of India Mumbai

Page 32

belief that an exaggerated practice of Ahimsa synchronised with our becoming bereft of manly virtues. During tlie past 1500 years we have as a nation given ample proof of physical courage, but we have been torn by internal dissensions and have been dominated by love of self instead of love of country. We have, that is to say, been swayed by the spirit of irreligion rather than of religion.
BENEFIT DERIVED FROM JAINS AND THEIR
RELIGIOUS WORKS.
"I do not know how far the charge of unmanliness can be made good against the Jains. I hold no brief for them. By birth I am a Vaishnavite, and was taught Ahimsa in ny childhood. I have derived much religious benefit from Jain religious works as I have from scriptures of the other great faiths of the world. I owe much to the living company of the deceased philosopher Raichand Kavi who was a Jain by birth. Thus though my views on Ahimsa are a result of my study of most of the faiths of the world, they are now no longer dependent upon the authority of these works. They are a part of my life, and if I suddenly discovered that the reli-. gious books read by me bore a different interpretation from the one I had learnt to give them, I should still lold the view of Ahimsa as I am. about to set forth here.