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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Jainism :-2
Jainism teaches that matter and spirit are two separate entities; they are both eternal. The universe taken as a totality had no beginning nor will it ever pass into nothingness. So far as different modifications are concerned, there is creation and destruction every moment. With regard to social rules Jainism gives no support to the institution of caste. Several centuries ago a high priest of the Jaina community named Ratna Prabha Suri happened to travel in Rajputana in India and while sojourning in a town converted a number of people from among the Hindus belonging to different castes. All of them were brought by him under one name – the Jainas. And even long before him, 700 years, before Christ, Mahavira the Jaina gymnosophist preached to the people at large that man is the noblest creature in the universe, higher than angels and gods and therefore he who looks down upon his brother man and takes pride as belonging to a high family or caste will have to pass through lower existence or be born low in the estimation of others. In his view caste is the outcome of human pride and vanity. And even today go to India and look at the marble inscription in golden letters in the Jaina temple at Chitor in Central India stating that even a chandala, low caste Hindu should not be prohibited from coming to that temple.
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