Book Title: Jain Philosophy
Author(s): Virchand R Gandhi
Publisher: Agamoday Samiti

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Page 376
________________ 347 chiefly interested such an audience as the present, the two were practically identical. Jainism and Buddhism were alike in being practically atheistical, but combining with that, a very definite belief in law and personal responsibility, and a capacity for extreme self-denial in obedience to that impersonal law. In England also it was easy to meet with highly conscientious agnostics; but it did not follow that the position was intellectually tenable. He himself thought it was not, and referred to the recent masterly treatise of Dr. James Ward, of Cambridge. Another point common to Buddhism and Jainism was the aversion to the taking of life, and consequently to all forms of fighting, even when purely defensive. In that it seemed to him they had an explanation in a great measure of the presence in India, first of the Mahommedans, aud then of the British. He thought that the essential contradiction between the existence of a State and the principle of non-esistance was sufficient to explain the ultimate dawnfall of Buddhism. True, the Jains survived, and were still (as the lecturer had shown) very useful members of the community; 80 were the Quakers in this cauntry; but the existence and usefulness of both were dependent on the willingness of others, who did not share their principles, to afford them protection. Mr. Martin Wood felt that there was a little deficiency in the historical part of the matter. He had not gathered personally the difference between Buddhism and Jaini Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

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