Jain Journal 1967 10

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

Page 49

52
But it is unfortunate that the posterity derived little benefit from the example set by these two leaders. Elsewhere in this issue is reviewed a book by V. A. Sangave where the author has drawn pointed attention to the divisions and subdivisions, their quality and quantity, in an otherwise numerically small Jaina community. This community has not only been a victim of a few major schisms that introduced the wellmarked distinctions between the white-robed and the sky-clad, or imageworshippers and followers of living monks, what is worse, within each one of these divisions, there are innumerable, often countless, subdivisions and fragmentations, both vertical and horizontal. If one takes a serious look at these, one wonders how a house so much divided from within manages to preserve its existence, howsoever moribund, on earth. One plausible explanation perhaps is that the differences are more at the superficial than at the fundamental level. For are not all Jainas, irrespective of denominations, followers or the same masters? These could not have left different instructions or different scriptures for their different followers. These differences in so far as they are extant are therefore a late interpolation in the fabric of the Jaina community. A little initiative, a little effort can perhaps bring these different denominations much closer to one another. But that initiative is to come from the spiritual leadership. If they themselves can enter into a dialogue and are not haunted by personal ambition for leadership, the creation of an universal church of Jainism may not be a distant dream as it was not in the days of Kesi and Gautama.
JAIN JOURNAL