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Jainism
VIRCHAND R. GANDHI
1. For this, the last lecture of the course, the subject that I have selected is Jainism, and I shall condense as much as possible the things that might be said on the subject.
Any philosophy or religion must be studied from all standpoints, and in order thoroughly to grasp the ideas of any religion or philosophy, know what it says with regard to the origin of the universe, what its idea is with regard to god, with regard to the soul and its destiny, and what it regards as the laws of the soul's life. The answers to all these questions would collectively give us a true idea of the religion or philosophy. In our country religion is not different from philosophy, and religion and philosophy do not differ from science. We do not say that there is scientific religion or religious science; we say that the two are identical. We do not use the word religion because it implies a binding back and conveys the idea of dependence of a finite being upon an infinite, and (the idea that) in that dependence consists the happiness or bliss of the individual.1 With the Jainas the idea is a little different. With them bliss consists not in dependence but in independence; the dependence is in the life of the world and if that life of the world is a part of religion then we may express the idea by the English word, but the life which is the highest life is that in which we are personally independent so far as binding or disturbing influences are concerned. In the highest state the soul, which is the highest entity, is independent.
2. This is the idea of our religion. The first important idea connected with it is the idea of universe. Is it eternal or non-eternal ? Is it permanent or transitory ? Of course, there are so many different opinions on the subject, but with these opinions I am not concerned in this lecture; I am only going to give the idea of the Jaina philosophy.
We say that we cannot study any idea unless we look upon it from all standpoints. We may express this idea by symbols or forms; we have expressed it by the story of the elephant and the seven blind men who wanted to know what kind of animal the elephant was, and each,
1 The sentence makes sense only as thus completed. Gandhi seems to be basing
his argument on the etymological derivation of the word 'religion'.
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