Jain Journal 2001 04

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

Page 26

THE UNIVERSAL MESSAGE OF JAINISM
KALIDAS NAG
[Dr. Kalidas Nag, an eminent Indologist and historian, died in Calcutta on November 8, 1966. A great admirer of Jainism and a profound scholar he contributed much for the better understanding of Jainism all over the world. As our homage to the departed soul, we reprint from one of his old writings on Jainism in which he had appealed for the formation of a 'World Federation of Ahimsa' as the noblest contribution of India to humanity. - Editor.]
Whatever may be the doctrinal differences between Jainism and other denominations of Hinduism, we are all grateful to the Jaina masters for their services to the cause of Indian culture and spirituality as well as towards the alleviation of human suffering through centuries. Dr. Winternitz has very justly observed in his History of Indian Literature, "The Jainas have extended their activities beyond the sphere of their religious literature to a far greater extent than the Buddhists have done, and they have memorable achievements in the secular sciences to their credit, in philosophy, grammar, lexicography, poetics, mathematics, astronomy and astrology, and even in the science of politics. In one way or other there is always some connection even of these 'profane' works with religion. In Southern India, the Jainas have also rendered services in developing the Dravidian languages, Tamil and Telugu, and especially the Kanarese literary language. They have, besides, written a considerable amount in Gujrati, Hindi and Marwari. Thus we see that they occupy no mean position in the history of Indian literature and Indian thought."
Unlike Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and such other religions committed to the task of proselytism, the Jaina religion preferred the less ostentatious path of realising Truth for the Individual and, through the individual, for Humanity.
Leaving aside the elaborate scholasticism, the dizzy height of syādvāda dialectics and the extraordinary cult of ahimsā (nonviolence), the spirit of Jainism may modestly point out to a few principles of Life that it has discovered for mankind of all ages:
Not to take life
Not to lie Not to steal
Not to own proprety