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244: JAINS TODAY IN THE WORLD the same opinion. Democritus (460 to 360 BC) in his theory of the world affirms the existence of atoms that combine, according to various movements, to give shape to living and non-living things. This theory may have come from Jains, but the latter are not materialists, they believe in the existence of innumerable and eternal souls. For their part, some scholars think that Jains have also inspired the Greek school?' of scepticism and the Christian apostle Thomas who went to India to convert people after he had the formal proof of Jesus's resurrection, influenced by Jain theories of non absolutism (anekāntavāda) and (syādvāda). Concerning Christianity, we find in the IVth century, semi nude monks retreated in deserts and caves of Egypt and Syria, practicing hard austerities. Contrary to Jains they worshiped a God creator but their sense of renouncement to the world and of sanctity were quite the same as those of the Jains.
We have by a Buddhist Chinese monk, Fa-Hsien, reports on his stay in India from 399 to 414 AD, and by a Chinese traveller, Huien Tsang, who visited the country from 629 to 645 AD, a very interesting book of what he saw. These two Chinese travellers have mentioned clearly the position of the Nirgrantha, earlier name of the Jains. Some other Chinese and Tibetan visitors have also published writings about India, but we do not know if what they said about Jains had any influence on the inhabitants of their home countries as these were cut off the outer world for a long time.
What we have mentioned has taken place in the distant past. Let us speak now of more recent periods. It was not until the middle of the XIX century that several Western scholars started to think that Jainism is a great religion. The decision of some great Jain Ācārya to open their libraries to foreigners and to answer their questions are at the beginning of more extensive and correct knowledge of that tradition. It was Hermann Jacobi and various others who proved that
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