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96
THE JAINA GAZETTE. fell, how many armies warred with success and failure ? What became of the innumerable fortresses reared and raised to the ground? How many cannons had boomed to massacre men ? Where are the triumphal arches of Princes and Potentates? Where are the riches of the South which made even Pliny, the Roman Historian envy the Indians ? Echo answers “where" ? They have all had their meteoric existence and had their day.
But still Sri Gommatesvara continues to look on the struggling world with a smile and dignity which cannot but be of great significance to the thinking souls. Is there not a voice lisping into your ears, “You know not what you do."
Go and sit at His feet and look at His divine face and figure and meditate upon the incidents of His life, His asceticism and His spiritual emancipation and realise for yourself in what spiritual ecstacy your soul gets itself enraptured. Then you hear the divine message of Sri Gommatesvara yourself, which is above all words, which is the language of the Spirit and the Soul, and yet calling to the human world, “What shall it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul ?."
Even for the ordinary Jaina layman who is much engrossed with the affairs of the world, the colossal Image is not without a deep significance. Does it not remind you of the famous days of Chamunda-Raya and other royal patrons. When on a visit to Gommatapura (Belgola) are you not moved at what the Jains were, during the glorious days of the great emperor Chandragupta and what they are to-day. In what walk of life did the ancient Jains not occupy a distinguished place ? On the other hand in what line of the present-day society the Jains have any voice at all ? Are you not set about musing about all this and more? Is there not a voice emanating from the lofty summits of Vindyagiri calling for unity and education, and daya and dana among the Jains in India ? Will this divine call and message go unheeded ? Victory to Sri Gommateswara !
M. K.
a
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
