Jain Journal 2001 04

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

Page 27

NAG: THE UNIVERSAL MESSAGE OF JAINISM
171
These were the four vows enjoined by Parsvanath, the great precursor of the 8th Century B.C. and his worthy successor Mahavira in the 6th Century B.C. added but the fifth vow of chastity, dividing the original vow of property into two parts, one relating to woman and another to wealth corresponding to the Brāhmanical vows about kāmini and kāncana. When missionaries of rival religions are crudely offering transcendental bribes (backed by temporal advantages, of course) like bliss in Heaven and extra-mundane Immortality, Jainism quietly affirms its lasting convictions through its daily prayer:
“The soul is the maker and non-maker and itself makes happiness and misery, is its own friend and its own foe decides its own condition good or evil."
Such an affirmation is born of centuries of research in the realm of spiritual realities which do not care for sentimental compassion or supernatural miracles of salvation. Jainism in its essence is the religion of heroic souls who are Jinas or conquerors of their self, and rightly its pioneer was styled Mahavira, the Great Hero. When modern researches in science and history would tear the veil of illusion from the face of many sects and cults, Jainism would shine in the primordial grace of her body spiritual, scorning all cheap trinkets and false ornaments. In sublime loneliness, Jainism realised Truth in its bare majesty and it ever urged human beings to rely more on individual discipline than on spiritual intermediaries like gurus or sons of God. What the object of this strenuous quest, this hard discipline, was, need not be (and cannot be defined. The heroic effort itself is the raison d'etre of the true Hero who seldom cares for incidental rewards on universal fame. Such a religion, no doubt, is not for the majority; but it may not be without appeal for a select few who are disillusioned of historic cults and are brought face to face with the eternal twins, Soul and Truth, the undeniable categories of human life and consciousness.
It is easy to wax eloquent, nay sentimental, over charity or compassion as the very soul of religions and yet to connive at the destruction of millions of human bodies in brutal, materialistic war. Against this chicanery of human conscience and degradation of our ethical code, Jainism shines today as the only religion with an uncompromising faith in peace and non-violence in thought and deed. This great lesson of Jainism, which Buddhism and Hinduism in general accepted, has not yet been made public with adequate reference to the Jaina canons and Jaina history. But we hope that, in this crisis of human culture when, in the name of nationalism and imperialism,