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JAIN JOURNAL
Or as the geographers would put it, the nebula cooled and the earth came into being. No one knows since how long man has existed on it. The Jaina philosophers have only chosen to define the cycle of Time. Ages of increasing misery are followed by ages of increasing bliss and vice versa. Thus the eternal round goes, cycles of six ascending and six descending eras following each other in endless and beginningless succession.
"From low to high doth dissolution climb. And sink from high to low, along a scale
awful notes, whose concord shall not fail."14
Recognising this immutable law of nature, Shelley exhorts us to be always seeking, to be always hoping for the better :
"Be through my lips to unawakened earth The trumpet of a prophecy ! O wind, If winter comes, can spring be far behind.”16
16
Wordsworth's sonnet on Mutability. Shelley's Ode to the West Wind.
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