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NOTES AND NEWS
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earnestly exhorted the Jainas to make Chaitra Krishna Naumi, the date of the birth of Shri Rishaba Deva, as popular and All-India known as Rama Naumi, and to celebrate it universally far and wide.
JAINISM: WHAT IT IS.
Jainism was a practical, a universal, and a proselytising religion; a religion which helped in the upliftment and evolution of all living beings, from the minutest undeveloped animalcule to the fully developed human kind, to the position of a Perfect Parmatma, a fully evolved living being, all-happy, all-knowing all-powerful, having no desire or want of any sort whatever, a real and true God, who does not stand in need of being worshipped, or praised, who wants no hallelujahs and no hamd-o-sanaa, who is not affected by the pleasure of providing a Paradise for his devoted votaries, and who never feels enraged at those who refuse to obey him, and who would condemn such rebels to his authority to the sulphurous fires of Hell-a God, who is above the need of assuming human or sub-human forms, and who would not interfere with the affairs of men or superman, a God who is supremely happy in the unalloyed Joy of Knowledge infinite and power unlimited. This religion is open to all, man and animals, birds and beasts. In the Court of the Omniscient Arhat, in the Samosaranam of a Tirthankara, there is only one chamber for all men, high and low, without distinction of any caste or colour, position or status; and there are no compartments or reserved places for any. All Jainas who can by virtue of their conduct and character, offer ablutions and worship to Shri Jinendra, and food to a Muni, form one social community-the Shravakas-and can certainly interdine and inter
marry.
It was a great pity that narrow-minded persons had for their own selfish ends so very much degraded Jainism, and injured the Jain Community by setting up unreasonable and unjustifiable barriers of castes and sub-castes to social intercourse among Jains in matters of dinner and marriage. Evil customs, such as infant marriage, marriages of tender-aged girls with decaying old men, very often for cash consideration, and wasteful extravagance on domestic occurrences, were inspite of pious resolutions repeated Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
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