Jainism and Dr Gours Hindu Code

Author(s): Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: Champat Rai Jain

Page 11

( 9) absurd. It has no foundation of fact. Mr. Elphinstone probably came across an instance or two of the kind and presumed generally that Jainism admitted Hindu gods. Such spectacles are not un. common in every religion. To-day Hindus (especially females) worship Mahomınadan tazias and tombs of men supposed to have been holy. But can we say that because some individuals thus act against the teachings of their religion therefore Hindus are Mohammedan dissenters? The fourth ground is the worst of all. It proceeds on the assumption that the Hindu system is absurd, and then develops the idea that the Jainas have added t) its absurdities. To this the Hindus will not, I am sure, readily agree. The truth is that what Mr. Elphinstone regards as an absurd statement is an enumeration of the rulers of Heavens who are termed Indras. Jainism fixes the number of Indras in all the heavens as 64 and the number of devis (devangnas) is also a fixed one. It may be that there are actually no heavens and hells in existence in which case the teaching will be certainly absurd, but the Jainas take it as proceeding from the Tirthamkara who is omniscient, and are therefore not likely to be dissuaded from accepting it on the word of a foolish writer who knows nothing about religioli, his own or any one else's.
Now, the inca that figures largely in the sacred scriptures of Hinduism, is not the ruler of the Heavens but a personification of Life (Confluence of Opposites. Lecture V). If Elphinstont and others who hastily jumped to the conclusion that Jainas were Hindu dissenters had taken the trouble to understand the charactee of the Rig Veda, they would have discovered that that documenr was couched altogether in a secret script underlying the apparent Sanskrit of the text. The moderns are altogether ignorant of this secret script though it is also the real language of the Holy Bible, the Zend Avesta and almost all other scriptures including the Quran. Jainism is, however, not composed in any secret script, and is not mythological in its nature. Now, the argument which proves the priority of Jainism to Hinduism consists in the priority of fact to fiction, that is to say in the priority of scientific truth to mythlogical garb. The point is that both the Jaina scriptures and the Vedas teach the same thing almost entirely, but the former are couched in plain language and the latter in mystic speech which has to be understand first, I have made this point very clear in the Confluence of Opposites and the Appendix to the