Jain Journal 1967 10

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 31

OCTOBER, 1967
Jaina religion in India despite its encountering a mighty adversary in Hinduism. This is a significant characteristic of Jainism unknown perhaps in any living religion. In the words of Jacobi :
“...The lay part of the community were not regarded as outsiders, or only as friends and patrons of the order, as seems to have been the case in early Buddhism ; their position was from the beginning welldefined by religious duties and privileges; the bond which united them to the order of monks was an effective one. The state of a layman was one preliminary, and, in many cases, preparatory to the state of a monk;... It cannot be doubted that this close union between laymen and monks brought about by the similarity of their religious duties, differing not in kind but in degree, has enabled Jainism to avoid fundamental changes within and to resist dangers from without for more than two thousand years, while Buddhism, being less exacting as regarding the lay-men, underwent the most extra-ordinary evolutions and finally disappeared in the country of its origin."