Jain Journal 1997 01

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

Page 24

OHIRA: JAINISM AND UNIFICATION THOUGHT
was carried out in preparation for the Second Coming of the Messiah. The Renaissance and the Reformation, which began around the 14th century and were in full swing by the 16th century, marked the beginning of this preparation.3 Mahāvīra thus made his appearance in India in the 6-5th centuries B.C., responding to the then providential movement, that was by itself a part of the world-wide spiritual movement occurring under God's dispensation.
Buddha's date as well as Mahāvīra's date are not definite yet. Neither Confucious' date nor Lao-tze's date are definitely certain. As a matter of fact, we don't need to be too rigid nor too nervous about the dates of these sages in this context. A matter of cardinal importance here is that God called a number of sages in the Oriental semisphere, so that they would start their philosophical and spiritual movements during these several centuries prior to the coming of Christ. Thus occurred the philosophical movements in Greece initiated by many sophists and philosophers including Socrates; likewise occurred the spiritual movements in India set by the Upanisadic sages and sophists including Mahāvīra and Buddha; and also occurred the philosophical movements in China started by a number of thinkers including Confucius. Socrates, Buddha and Confucius are, therefore, considered as the nuclei of the then world-wide spiritual movements led by God's providence.
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Salvation sought after by the sages of Upanisad as well as Mahāvīra and Buddha was freedom from the cycle of rebirth by way of rooting out the entire karmic particles. It means freedom from the causes of sufferings, and the task of its eradication is vested in everybody as his own responsibility. The Aryan invaders from Europe brought to India the idea of God or Brahman with them; however, they did not bring in the concepts of man's fall and original sin, which are the primary causes of man's sufferings. Satan thus successfully worked out his
way.
According to the Unification Principle, salvation is to restore fallen man and the world to God from Satan's hands, thereby restoring the original purpose of God's creation. In accomplishing this task, all human beings on earth and in the spirit world have to, first of all, have their Satanic lineage converted to God's lineage. Then, Lucifer, now standing as Satan, has to be subdued and placed back in his former position as archangel. Finally, the present Satanic world has
3. Explaining Unification Thought, p. 304.
4. The author was informed by Prof. K. Bruhn about H. Bechert and L.S. Cousins' recent views on Buddha's date, that is placed around 400 B.C.