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THE JAINA GAZETTE annually for some 25 years past, on the increase and were sapping up the vitality of the Jain community, which was continuously decreasing in numbers, health and wealth. The evils of forming factions, of excommunicating or threatening excommunication of, energetic, intelligent, and honest, young men of upright and spotless character on foolish grounds, and of looking over the obvious lapses from morality, and rectitude of others, have dis-integrated the Jain community which for want of internal cohesion is unable to endure the opposition and attack from without, an inevitable feature of the present struggle for existence, and succumbs and crumbles to disjointed pieces. Oh! what a fall, and from what height fallen !
The remedies are clear and obvious, if the Jain Community will only have Samyak Darshan, Right belief, realize its own interest, and position, and extricate itself from the thraldom of evil customs and the ruinous, ungrateful and sinful seductions and enticements of those who thrive on the spoils of the Community, who would fain keep the community under the stupid stupor of ignorance to role them of their small belongings. Abolish all non-essential rites and customs attached to marriage and other domestic occurrences, declare all marriages between persons where the difference of age is more than 20 years against social rules, entailing the penalty of excommunication for all persons concerned, allow free inter-marriage and inter-dining among all-sub-castes following the Jain religion, make primary education, secular and religious compulsory for all Jain boys and girls, and establish Jain High Schools and Colleges wherever necessary, and abolish all unreasonable and unjustifiable prejudices which are clogging the progress of the Jain religion.
B. NIRMAL KUMAR'S SPEECH. Babu Nirmal Kumar ol Arrah was unanimously elected president. In his Presidential address, a brochure of 28 closely printed pages, he extremely regretted the long-drawn wastetul ruinous and irreligous litigation about sacred places of pilgrimage between Swetambaris and Digambaris and between the
Digambaris themselves. The Digambara institutions like the Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
