________________
1905 ] A field for real workers.
291 libraries of old manuscripts can be easily explained by a reference to the tendency of human nature to cling to ancient ideas and customs, which, in majority of cases, acquire sanctity in the minds of man after the original cause thereof disappears or is forgotten; and in some cases practice is invariably continued to be followed with blind confidence though the cause originating it has already been wiped off from the surface of the world. This generalisation is a grand truism for all oriental nations such as Indians who are always lagging backward in matters of progess But the most important question is an inquiry into the duties of the educated Jains who are responsible for the future progress of their community. The Jain community is unfortunately in sore need of real inquirers at a time when it is the most difficult thing for her sons to take higher education and thus to keep the community if not in the front, at all events on a level with other communities with regard to her social progress. It is quite apparent to a casual observer that the period under which the whole of India is now passing on 18 eminently a transitional period, and the duties and responsibilities of the leaders of a nation or a portion of it are tremendous under the peculiar surroundings and circumstances in which it is invariably placed on such a juncture. But even assuming that the Jain community cannot boast of possessing numerons geniuses amongst her sons, that those
ere too much occupied in their own vocation, that her childeru's calls to duties towards her are too many, that real workers . amongst her children are very few, that education has done very little to raise the status of her sons to a higher standard of faith and morality and that fundamental reconstruction of many matters, social, moral, intellectual and spiritual is sine qua non for her welfare, ay, even for her existence, even granting all these facts, it must be admitted that a class of workers is required to lay bare to the general Hindu public as well as Europeans the grand inheritance which we have the good forüune to acquire through the wisdom of our ancestors mentioned above. The absolute protection and care of the aforesaid inheritance is not only desired merely for its own sake, but for the sake of the future welfare of the Jain community.
One thing is apparent on the superficial study of the Jain religious books that the tenets prescribed therein are such as to meet the requirements of every stage of human progress and it can be said to its credit that the whole system of Jain philosophy allows of its being adopted to time, place and circumstances, it being therein prescribed
