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The Relevance of Jainism in the
Present World
SAGARMAL JAIN
We are living in the age of science and technology. The growth of scientific knowledge and technology have given new dimensions to our life and influenced each and every field of our living. Science has done a great service to mankind by providing amenities of pleasant living and saved him from many miseries and uncertainities of the primitive past. It has also destroyed many superstitions and religious dogmas, but at the same time it has also uprooted the moral, religious and cultural values of our society. Our traditional religious values and beliefs have been thrown away by this growth of scientific knowledge and out-look. We know much about the atom but not about the values needed for a meaningful and peaceful life. We are living in the state of chaos. Our life is full of excitements, emotional disorders and value conflicts. Thus our age is also the age of anxiety and mental tensions.
Today what is needed for a man, is mental peace and a complete integration with his own personality as well as with his social environment. Can religion, in general and Jainism in particular meet this need of our times ? Yes, it can. Religion for Jaina thinkers, does not mean some superstitions, dogmas and rituals, it has some eternal virtues and values, which can meet the needs of the time. First of all we should try to understand its real meaning and essence.
The Essence of Religion
Our fundamental question is what we mean by the term religion ? Many of the western scholars define religion as faith. Prof. E. B. Taylor writes “Religion is the belief in spiritual beings."'l Prof. Hoffding mentions "Religion is faith in the conservation of values."? According to Jaina thinkers also the inner core of religion is faith, but it is the faith in our own existence and our own real nature, religion is a firm belief in some eternal and spiritual values which are more essential for the upliftment and existence of mankind. In the famous Jaina text, Kārtikeyāņuprekşā dharma (religion) is defined as the real nature of the things. If it
i Quoted in Dharma-darsana, p. 28. ? Ibid., p. 29. 3 Kartikeyanupreksa, 478.
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