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Jaina Monuments of Orissa
gious efforts leading to liberation. The life of the Master offered for imitation by his earnest disciples stands as one of the highest examples of such a personality. The heart of Jainism is emptied of all that go to constitute selfishness, haughtiness, cruelty, wickedness in consideration and such immoral propensities. These are removed so as to find the human heart filled with love, kindness, meekness, sincerity and such other best qualities of character.
Mahāvira laid a great stress on the activity of souls. The individual soul has innumerable unity of space. The soul is unearthed and possessed of the quality of existence. The soul knows and sees all, desires happiness, is afraid of pain, does friendly or unfriendly actions, and enjoys the fruits of them. That which has consciousness, is soul. The soul in combination with the body is the door of all actions. One should abstain from killing beings, theft, falsehood, sensual pleasure and spirituous liquor. Those who do not renounce these go to hell.
A sage should wander about free from sins. Self should be subdued. A monk should avoid untruth, sinful speech and should not be deceitful. Nothing sinful, hurtful and meaningless should be told by him. He must conquer twenty-two troubles, e.g. hunger, thirst, cold, heat, nakedness, erratic life, women, dirt, ignorance, etc. The pious Shtains purity and the pure stands firmly in the law. Delusion, pride, deceit and greed should be avoided. Monks or householders who are trained in self control and menance and who have obtained liberations by the absence of passion, go to the highest region. Those who are ignorant of the truth are subject to pain. One should not permit killing of living beings. He should not commit sins in thoughts, words and acts The pleasures are like a venomous snakes. The pleasures are the thorn that rankles and they should be given up. He should keep the severe now of chastity. Mental and hodily penances should be practised. An ascetic by virtue of his simplicity enter the path of nirvana.
Meditation means abstaining to meditate on painful and sinful things. One should with a collected mind engage in pure meditation on the laws.
There are three ways of committing sins by ones own activity, by commission, and by approval of the dead. By purity of heart one reaches Nirvana. Nirvana consists in peace. Mokşa is the essential point in the teaching of Mahāvira which is generally understood as emancipation. It really mans the attainment of the highest state of sanctification by the avoidance of pain and miseries of worldly life. The conception of nirvana in Buddhism differ essentially from the Mokļa view of the Jainas. With Buddhists, to be clearer its proposed meaning is extinction whereas with the Jainas it has a positive significance implying absolute purity and freedom from the snares of Karma.
Mahāyira's great message to mankind is that birth is nothing, that caste is nothing and that Karma is everything and on the destruction of Karma, the future happiness depends.
