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JAINISM, CHRISTIANITY & SCIENCE
attention. It requires a close familiarity with the 'scriptures of the world to be able to appreciate the extent
to which allegorizing was carried on in the different countries of the world.
We shall confine ourselves in this treatise to the Christian (Biblical) allegories in the main, and offer a brief explanation of some of the quaint conceptions underlying the allegorist's work. The story of the 'fall' is the first to demand our attention. The soul 'is represented as a garden in poetical thought; its attributes are deemed to be trees. Two of these attributes are the most important; they are, therefore, placed in the centre of the garden. They are Life itself symbolized by The Tree of Life' which is also a symbol for Divine Wisdom, since Wisdom Divine and Life are but two words for one and the same thing, and also since Wisdom Divine is promised Life Abundant as its complement.
The other tree is the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil' which means the determination of the values of external goods, of worldly things, from the point of view of the pleasure and the pain which they are able to afford to us individually. The result of the determination of the good and evil of things in Nature is the cultivation of likes and dislikes, or love and hatred, as they are termed in the Eastern literature. These are the fruits of the above-named tree. Why this is forbidden is because love and hatred are the causes of transmigration and the prolongation of the bondage of the soul.
The soul is immortal, and invited to turn and enjoy the fruit of the Tree of Life, that is, to attend to the adoration of its own divinity, whether directly or through
