Book Title: Jainism by Vividus
Author(s): Ramnik V Shah
Publisher: Ramnik V Shah Canada

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Page 170
________________ its sweetwill activate itself to the state of Brahman and therefore to anything else. And what did Jarathusta or Zoroaster preach ? He reduced the polytheism of the Iranians to two deities, Ahuramazda and Ahirman, the deity of the good and the deity of the evil. This is the perfect expression of the dualism that is in man, a compound of physical and psychological parts, material and spiritual, body and soul. This solved the great theological problem of the day, the monotheism. How could God create or tolerate evil ? Jarathusta conceived the two as twins with the deity of good finally prevailing. "Satya meva jayate", truth alone is victorious in the end, the maxim is too well-known in Vedanta to be repeated here only with the difference that while in Iran it was being explained and propounded by Jarathusta, the founder of Zoroastrianism who received it by way of an intimately personal revealation, the same was long established as a fact in India both among Vedantins and Jainas, the two parallel streams of culture the origin of which in time was quite unknown. Later, with the advent of Islam in Iran, Zoroastrianism was at first tolerated and then persecuted finally resulting in its total disappearance. Most of the Zoroastrians only naturally looked upon India as a safe place of shelter. They migrated en block there and were warmly received in Iran, however with Islam taking its place, once again monotheism, was established. There was only one God, the Allah and Mohamad was His Prophet. With its militancy and intolerance, Islam spread far and wide in the middle eastern countries at first and later on to many other countries but its essential message of brother-hood and surrender or submission to God alone persisted to this day. Islam in Arabic literally means 'surrender or submission to God'. If the theme is deeply meditated upon by Islamis as well as non-Islamis, the vibrations felt by the meditator will be of the same kind, more akin to those felt 54

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