Jainism

Author(s): Annie Besant
Publisher: Theosophical Publishing House

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2
JAINISM
phrase, that we find in the Sūtra Kritānga", that man by injuring no living creature reaches the Nirvana which is peace. That is a phrase that seems to carry with it the whole thought of the Jaina: peace — peace between man and man, peace between man' and animal, peace everywhere and in all things, a perfect brotherhood of all that lives. Such is the ideal of the Jaina, such is the thought that he endeavours to realize upon earth.
Now the Jainas are comparatively a small body; they only number between one and two million men; a community powerful not by its numbers, but by its purity of life, and also by the wealth of its members — merchants and traders for the most part. The four castes of the Hindus are recognized by the Jainas, but you will now find few Brahmanas among them; few also of the Kshatriyas, which caste seems wholly incompatible with the present ideas of the Jainas, though their Jinas are all Kshatriyas. The vast mass of them are Vaisyas — traders,
1 ii, 20.