Jain Thought and Culture

Author(s): G C Pandey
Publisher: University of Rajasthan

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Jain Thought and Culture
scholars who came in contact with Akbar in the pre- 1578 period were Buddhi Sagar of Tapa Gachchha wlio held a discussion in the Emperor's presence with Sadhu Kırtı of the Kharlar Gachchha. Another acharya of the Tapa Gachchha who came in contact with Akbar during this period was Padam Sundar The Jain version4 about the meeting of these acharyas with the Emperor scems plausible as we find the Emperor anxious to meet the divinies of different faiths since his boyhood
Akbar's object in his investigations in the fields of religion and philosophy was to ascertain what was truth and what was untruth in different religions, including his own, and also in the various systems of philosophy, so that he might adopt the truth wherever it was discernible, and reject all falsehood, even in his own faith He believed that truth could withstand severest scrutiny while what was false would crumple under the lancet of free and open investigatron To quote him "He is a man who makes Justice the guide of the path of inquiry, and takes from every sect what is consonant to reason Perhaps in this way the lock, whose key has been lost, may be opened” He admired, as Abul Fazl writes, "the truth-seel king nature of the natives of India” 5
Akbar, it seems, was a genuine seeker of "abstract truth" This is the impression we get from the nature of his inquiries to scholars, Pontiffs, monks, and recluses of different creeds He would enquire from them their articles of faith, their practices, the concept of God, the power of omnipresence of the soul, the theory of incarnation, the theory of karmans, the concept of the last day of judgment, the problem of salvation from sin, the power of being absent from the body, and such other problems 6 It was his desire to understand the purpose, course, and end of this life that he made his court, in Abul Fazl's words "The home of the inquirers of the seven climes and the assemblage of the wise of every religion and sect” 6
It was in such a liberal climate that the Jain monks and scholars acquainted Akbar with the fundamentals of their religion They seem to have formed a good impression of the Emperor in whom
3 AL Srivastava, Akbar the Great, I, p. 243, (He cites Yuga Pradhana Sri Jinchandra Suri, p 63, AN, III, p 253) 4 Akbarnama, II, p 371 5 Thus see Badaoni, Muntakhab-u-Tawarıkh (tr Lowe), II, 334 6 Akbarnama, II, 366