Book Title: Jain Itihas Series 01
Author(s): B Benarsidass
Publisher: B Benarsidass

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Page 43
________________ ( 34 ) assumed, no doubt, different guises in different systems, but this ought not to deceive us, and a little reRection allows us to perceive their common source." " And the longer I have studied the various systems, the more have I become impressed with the. truth of the view taken by Vignana-Bhikshu and others that there is beyond the variety of the six systems a common fund of what may be called national or popular philosophy, a large Manasa lake of philosophical thought and language, far away in the distant North, and in the distant Past from which each thinker was allowed to draw for his own purposes." This is, gentlemen, the dictum of Prof. Max Mäller when he was seventy-six years old. It is a pity that this noble scholar could not study Jainism. His whole life was passed in bringing to light the Vedic and Buddhistic literature, and he could not spare time to read poor Jainism. If he said that Jainism was started by the Nirgrantha Nattaputta, it was because, I presume, he found it to be the safest to adopt this opinion. This opinion is not the result of his study of the antiquity of Jainism. Let me, however, not digress. Let me simply tell you here that there is no borrowing in ancient India. Different Rishis held different views of life, and the Darshanas that you now find, embody the opinions of those. Rishis. Gentlemen, let me also submit here that the terms Blindolem and Brab Hinduism and Brahmanism as genemanism mis-nomers. rally used appear to me misnomers.

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