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Jainism of the Lake Poets
K. B. JINDAL
To profess a religion, it is not necessary to be born to it or to be converted into it. And one may practise a religion without even professing it. Mahatma Gandhi's whole outlook on life is moulded on the Jaina philosophy of Ahimsā ; he practised Ahimsā more perfectly than any Jaina has hitherto done. And yet he never called himself a Jaina. The English poets of the early nineteenth century had an outlook on life which seemed to be in every respect influenced by Jainism. And yet Jainism was not at all known to England in that century. Jainism is not a label given to any particular dogma, heresy or fanciful theory. It is the sumtotal of certain elemental truths which have appealed to the reason of man in all ages and in all times. Jainism has had no beginning ; it has no founder-in the sense in which Jesus founded Christianity or Mohammad founded Islam. Our Tirthankaras only re-discovered for the people, the truths which had been lost to them in their ignorance. The Tirthankaras preached what their experience told them to be the best and the simplest solution of the riddle of life. Independently of any example or precept, the 24 Tirthankaras arrived at the same truth. Small wonder, that the English poets in their study of life, also reached at the same conclusion.
The Humanitarian Leagues in England and other western countries are raising a voice against vivisection and all sorts of cruelties to animals. Wordsworth preached Ahimsā as early as 1798 :
"Our meddling intellect Misshapes the beauteous forms of things ; We murder to dissect."1
1
The Tables Turned.
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