Jainas in History of Indian Literature

Author(s): Jinvijay
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

Page 13

PREFACE
The motivating spirit of Jain literature is highly social and spiritual. Jainism aims at the redemption of the individual as well as the group from all kinds of human misery. It has as its goal the spiritual uplift of every living being. It unequivocally preaches the practice of non-injury to all living organisms.
From the vast treasure of Jain literature it would be quite easy to find out numerous thoughts and statements which can quite usefully guide the leaders of the United Nations today in the performance of their duty to restore peace and order to the war-weary world. Dr. WINTERNITZ has drawn pointed attention in this essay to an utterance of the Jain Acharya Somadevasūrī in tais Nītivākyāmsta.
Hansthuit a Hon or: FT: I The war-mongering ammunition manufacturers and army commanders have no right to participate in the deliberations which are aimed at the establishment of enduring peace and order in the world. War-mongering leaders have a natural hankering after war, and if true peace is to be established between the nations the peace conference must be constituted by peaceful and peaceloving citizens. While taking note of that precept of Nītivākyāmrta, Dr. WINTERNITZ who took it to be fully significent, has thus mentioned in this essay :
: "Much blood-shed would have been avoided and Europe would have been spared infinite misery, if during the last years Somadeva's wise rule had always been followed—“Military authorities should not be authorities im (political ) counsels"-p. 46.
Dr. WINTERNITZ had written his essay during the years just following the last world war, and as he passed away before the commencement of the second he was spared the bitter experiences of all-pervasive horror that typified the recent war. But he tacitly stated, and we are ourselves realising today, that war ministers can never be fruitfully made to join the deliberations of a peace conference,