Lecture On Jainism

Author(s): Lala Banarasidas
Publisher: Anuvrat Samiti

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sion of Adam and Eve froin heaven. Adam and Eve were naked and pure. They enjoyed perfect happi. ness in the garden of Eden. They had no knowledge of good and evil. The devil, their enemy, desired to deprive them of their happiness. Ile made them eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They at once saw their nakedness. They fell. They were expelled from heaven. It is this kvowlcdyc of good and evil, it is this knowledge of nakedness, that deprived them of Eden. The Jains hold the same belief. Our knowledge of good and evil, our knowledge of nakedness, keeps us away from salvation. To obtain it we must forget nakedness. The Jain Nirgranthas have forgot all knowledge of good and evil. Why should they requirc clothes to hide their nakedness? Why should thcy not be naked and pure like Adam and Eve, enjoying happiness in the garden of self, and why should they by the knowledge of good and evil, by the knowledge of nakedness, deprive themselves of that everlasting bliss, and suffer a fall in the world? In Hindu Shastras too nakedness is not less highly spoken of. Shukacharya on whose arrival at the court of Parikshit all the many thousands of Rishis including his father and grandfather got up, was a Digambara. Shiva is a Digambara. Dattatreya is a Digambara. The sect of Avadhoots is Digambara or Jat Rup Dhara. Rishabha, one of the 24 Avatars of Vishnu, the founder of Jainism, is a Digambara. In the Vairagya Shataka of the Bhartrihari Shataka, Bhartrihari prays to Shiva or Mahadera "O Shambhoo when will