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JANISM UND WORLD PROBLEMS
temptation he will soon repent and undo the harın done. The materialist, who only believes in a happy end in the grave after the lapse of the proverbial three score years and ten, has ugly blankness staring him in the face, at all times. He has nothing to look forward to in the future ; he is here to make the most of the present moment. He has no fear of death, that is to say, of the effect of his actions on the soul after death, but he fears the man-made law.
Some spend their ingenuity in devising means of baffling the law. Some of these fail in their enterprise and are caught. The number of prisoners from different communities is a reliable indication of the effect of the community's belief on the lives of its members. The number of prisoners from the Jaina Community is the sınallest ; and the Jaina Comununity is the only one in which the true Doctrine as set out above is openly preached and practised. In no other religion the Doctrine is openly and clearly preached, and in none is the percentage of the number of law-breakers so small as in the case of the Jainas. The immediate effect of the Jaina Culture would be, thus, a check on crime. As for the individual, it will fill the mind with Life and Light, and raise him above the petty mindedness of worldliness.
With reference to the obligation to be good, it is to be remembered that Jainism does not seek the inoral sanction in the dictum of a god or goddess whose pleasure is to be sought by the individual. Many peoples have comunitted terrible atrocities in the names of the gods themselves, in the belief that they were fighting the battles of their god, or gods, and whatever evil they wrought was sure to be expunged from their record. In Jainism there is no question of forgiveness of sins, and, consequently, any wrong done has to be paid for fully, unless the wrong-doer repent and himself undo the harm he has done, or the karma (actio!ı) is cancelled by Renunciation and world flight.
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