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JAINISM
life everlasting; and that omniscience is impossible in any in whom the infatuating elements are found to exist.
It is claimed of the Jain spiritual leaders that they were omniscient, and free from every weakness and passion. The Jain scriptures are claimed to be the historical records of the lives and teachings of those omniscient, spiritual leaders; and it is from these scriptures that the Jain doctrines are taken. The Jain spiritual leaders lived in the flesh on earth as men. Thus we have the source from which the following views are taken.
Apart from any question as to whence the doctrines have come, however, they stand on their own merits and are in themselves comforting and satisfactory. They protect the soul from evil, they fulfil the requirements of the heart, will bear the severest scrutiny of the intellect, and they give freedom to the individual,—there are no commands to obey. Religion is the act of bringing one's own life up to an accepted standard of excellence morally and spiritually, and these doctrines offer such a standard; they are a serious concern for man in his relations with his fellow beings, and in relation to his own future state of life in eternity; and they show him how to relieve others and himself of misery, and how to increase happiness in himself and in others. Thus the doctrines are not only a philosophy but emphatically a religion. And first and foremost they are a religion of the heart, their motto or golden rule being “non-injury (ahinsa)”; and the whole structure is built upon love (daya); and “religion is the only thing that can afford true consolation and peace of mind in the season of affliction and the
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