Jainism Christianity and Science

Author(s): Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: The Indian Press Allahabad

Page 33

ALLEGORY
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question being "From the Key." This section is devoted to the secret significance of metaphors such as the following:
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Head of the Lord-His simple Divinity;
The eyelids of the Lord-bidden spiritual mysteries in the divine precepts;
The smelling of the Lord-His delight in the prayers or works of saints; the fingers of the Lord-the prophets;
The heavens-('I will regard the heavens') the books of the law and the prophets;
The feet of the Lord-immoveableness and eternity;
The throne of the Lord-angels or saints on simply sovereign dominion;
The ascent of the Lord-the raising up of man, who is taken from earth to heaven;
The sleeping of the Lord-"When in the thoughts of some, His faithfulness is not sufficiently wakeful."
Under the circumstances all that could be done was to explain as much of the teaching of truth as could be done by means of hints and innuendoes with the safeguard of laconicity and incoherence. It is said in the twelfth volume of the A. N. C. L. series (Clement's Writings) on p. 472: "For it is not required to unfold the mystery, but only to indicate what is sufficient for those who are partakers in knowledge to bring it to mind." Moses Maimonides, too, urges, several centuries after Clement, the same procedure (see The Guide for the Perplexed, 251), when he says: .... a person favoured by Providence to understand these mysteries is forbidden by Law to teach them, except viva voce, and on the condition that the pupil possess certain qualifications, and even then only the heads of the sections may be communicated. This has been the cause why knowledge has entirely disappeared from our
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