Jainism and World Problems

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

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JAINISM AND WORLD PROBLEMS
marriage ceremony, as also in the Hindu ritual, an absolutely essential item is the circumambulation of the Sacred Fire seven times. The Hindus have it that Agni (Fire) is one of their gods, who is invited on the occasion, to witness the ceremony and to bless the couple. The Jainas have an easy explanation of their ritual. Fire stands, in symbolic thought, for Renunciation that cleanses and purifies. When the marrying couple are made to go round the Sacred Fire seven times, they are to realize, from the sacred symbolism (and they must never forget it) that the aim of life is not to lose oneself in pleasure, but Renunciation. They are to impress this on their minds each time that they go round the Sacred Fire! The need for the injunction is really very grcat at the moment ; for married life, on account of the pleasures it affords to the participants, the birth of children, the intoxication of wealth and power, and the like is not unlikely to become too powerful a distraction for many.
It is only from the men and women who have been fully impressed with the need for practising universal love that the world can expect peacefulness and goodwill. I may add that a study of the Jaina Puranas will show that this was not anything like an unattainable ideal, but a matter of common achievement. If the Aryan Empire was able to hold together from the remotest of hoary antiquity down to the modern times it was because of the Aryan Youths, who were well-equipped, not for killing out their unfit brethren, but for helping all, and also themselves, to live and flourish. Its downfall in modern times is due to the lack of well trained noble-minded men. Pride and arrogance came to take the place of love and meekness in recent times in the hearts of the Aryan youths, and we witnessed the advent of the Muhammadans and then of the British in a short time.
If you are anxious to benefit by our experience, you should first understand the significance of the ahimsa dharma, in the scientific way, and then see that your boys