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FOREWORD
In this booklet, the author of the 'Key of Knowledge, Mr. C. R. Jain, Par-at-Law, who needs as little introduction to the student of Jaina Literature and Philosophy as does Newton to a physicist or Darwin to an evolutionist, has examined the errors-gross, inexcusable and uncharitable of Dr. H. S. Gour in his Hindu Code. A lawyer should know that a mere dabbler in Law-however so eminently placed in his profession--is no more qualified to pass judgment as to the origin of a great ancient religion than is a medical expert to settle the point of a legal controversy. la the West, it was the wise Socrates, the seeker after truth, who long long ago made men conscious of their ignorance and thoroughly exposed the hollowness of their much boasted wisdom. He advised them to remove what is kuown as the conceit of knowledge as a preliminary measure to their securing real development, moral and mental. But even in these days of enlightenment the curious sp:ctacle of a learned Doctor of Law making sweeping puerile and highly offensive statements about an ancient religion on the authority of unhistori. cal history and works that do not profess to deal with the matter is not uncommon, and we find a lawyer of such eminence as Dr. Gour speaking of Jainas as Hindu dissenters and heretics and of Jainism as a child of Buddaism, when every scholar now kaows the facts to be the other way. Dr. Gour's authorities are Elphins. tone's History of India and the Bengal Census Report for 1881, together with certain rulings of the Indian High Courts. These authorities have been examined in this pamphlet by Mr. Champat Rai Jain who has shown them to be out of date as well as irrelevant. The result of scientific research carried on by European and Indian scholars during the last 40 years has exploded the old notions early Europeans entertained about Jainism, and it is shown in the following pages how Dr. Gour kept back this most impor. tant and conclusive item of evidence in airing his vics in the Hindu Code. The internal evidence furnished by the sacred books of the Buddhistic creed which allude to the Nigganthas (the Jainas) again and again in one forn or another is also referred to and considered here,
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