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NOTES AND NEWS.
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Digambaras or Swetambaras ? Why should the other sect go and interfere with the rights of their brethren? Lord Mahavira has not laid down any where that the ownership or management of any sacred place will entitle any individual or sect to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Jainism is pre-eminently an ethical Religion. It does not matter where and how we worship? But it matters much how and what we think, speak and do. A man who thinks of and worships Shikarji from his own house will certainly have more punya than his brother who goes to Shikarji, picks up a quarrel with his co-religionist as to mine and thine and bows down to the footprints with an angry heart and a disturbed mind. If our great Religion and community should be saved from the Jaws of death we should give up all our quarrels amongst ourselves. We cannot expect the world to listen to our preaching of universal peace and brotherhood when our own hands are stained with blood and hold the bayonet against the heart of our own brethren. It is million times better to give up sacred places and end the communal quarrels than to kill one another and load our precious souls with evil karmas in the name of Tirtha Kshetras. Karma is a hard task-master and is no respector of persons. If our co-religionists want to deprive us of any sacred place and drive us away from these by wrong and illegal means let them do so. Let us quitely go home, sit there, meditate and pray. We will not be less Jainas for that and our brethren who wish to overlord us will not in any degree be better Jainas than ourselves. There is Karma between us. It is sure to bring the envitable. The wicked shall surely suffer and we need not take the trouble to chastise them. Let us not waste our money to drag our antogonists to courts. Let our leaders direct their attention to more valuable problems-problems threatening the very existence of our Religion and community. Our Religion is not yet so widely known in the world as it deserves to be and our number is rapidly decreasing day by day. We have already written about this in one of our past issues. From a study of the figures for the past 40 years we have found that the Jainas are lessening in number by 19 every day. That is 19 Jainas die away every day. At this rate we would lose 6935 Jainas Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
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