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JAINISM: ARE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL BEINGS
RESPONSIBLE?
Jainism started in the world with origin of Jainas and when did Jainas originate ? I suggest they originated with the visits of Tirthankaras to this planet since remotest past which just cannot be ascertained. All Tirthankaras born in this world were, previous to thier births; beings in various heavens above. Perhaps their visits synchronized with various stsges in the evolution of man as he is to day. Though this man is not the final word in the entire process of evolution Jainism as started in the beginning has accepted him as a being so evolved as to be capable of attaining to a state in consiousness wherealter his cycle of births and deaths would cease for ever.
Let us now turn to what modern thought has to say on the subject of evolution of man in general as it appears that Jainism originated on this earth at an appropriate time in his continued evolution to the present stage. In 1984 publication on this subject entitled "The Bone Peddlers: Selling Evolution" the author has declared:" Paleontologists have now hypothesized after abandoning Darwin's slow and regular process, the process of evolution in sudden fits and starts with stabilization gaps for long periods perhaps until extinction (of the one for the next other one)" "It is called "punctuated equilibrium."The transition between species happens quickly (even a thousand years is a mere moment geologically) and in such small populations that there is virtually no chance of finding fossil evidence to fill those gaps. Into the gaps in which these paleontologists insert sudden fits of accidental evolution, one can with equal logic insert acts of Creation, intervention by conscious beings or any other hypothetical process. What most anthropologists now do believe is that somewhere along the way, present day apes and man shared a common ancestor, a creature who lived millions of years ago, who was different from both man and the present day apes but from whom both groups descended. Some scientists
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