Jain Journal 1970 01

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

Page 66

Twenty Most-Asked Questions About Jainism
LEONA SMITH KREMSER
To the Lord Aristanemi, the twenty-second Jaina teacher, conqueror of the beginningless cycle of births and deaths, O Pure Soul without a body, I make obeisance.
Now I begin answers to the twenty questions most often asked in the West about Jainism.
1. What is Jainism?
an indigenous Indian religion of non-injury to all living beings. It is the one total non-injury or Ahimsa. Ahimsa to all living beings. On this principle from protohistory, Jainism endures into the present. Twenty-four teachers in a long series came to offer, in their life-acts of austerities, their spiritual system that leads all living beings from impure body to Pure Soul. Jainism does not ask all to become Jainas. It is a world religion only because it welcomes all the world to liberation by way of Jaina code of conduct-conduct in act if not in Jaina name. From the Sanskrit, the teachers are called Spiritual Conquerors or Jinas. Followers are called Jainas.
2. What briefly do Jainas believe?
that the three-fold path of Right Belief, Right Knowledge, and Right Conduct alone purify the soul. This soul in you and me is intrinsically pure. But like the sun behind a cloud, it is behind the cloud of its own self-induced ignorance. Remove ignorance, purify soul, realise self. To this end, religions offer many paths but Jainas believe in the three-fold one. In abridged context, it is belief in Jaina principles, knowledge of the principles, and conduct in daily living by the principles. The basic Jaina principle is non-injury, all the way from the vegetable and insect to the human you and me. Example: The good Jaina does not eat the underground vegetable that has microscopic lives, he does not crush the cockroach that has a soul, he does not sell liquor to harm others nor drink liquor to harm himself. Altogether the towering Jaina religion is intricate and encyclopedic. But the great central motive of conscious life, states Jainism, is for the individual