Lord Mahavira and His Teachings

Author(s): Vallabhsuri Smarak Nidhi
Publisher: Vallabhsuri Smarak Nidhi

Page 36

Lord Mahavira and His Teachings
meticulous care and perseverance the Jainas have preserved MS. collections in places like Jatsalmer, Jaipur, Pattan and Moodbidri that these are a part of our national wealth. They built these collections with such an academic and catholic outlook, that there was hardly any place for religious bias. It must be said to the credit of the builders of the great collections at Jaisalmer and Pattan that it is here that we could trace certain original Buddhist works which otherwise : were known to us only from Tibetian translations.
A dispassionate and critical study of Jaina literature enables one to get a fair idea of the Jaina outlook or view of life. By the Jaina view of life we mean the view of life sanctioned by Jainism as apparent from an objective and judicious interpretation of the fundamentals of Jaina metaphysics and ethics, and not the outlook on life which the followers of Jainism generally have to-day.
Metaphysically speaking, all souls, according to their stage of spiritual evolution or progress (in terms of Gunasthanas) have a legitimate place on the path of religion; everyone's position is determined by his Karmic limitations, and his progress depends on his potentialities. The Jaina God is neither a creator of the universe nor a dispenser of favours and frowns. He is a spiritual ideal, but also a being who has Teached absolute perfection. If He is praised and worshipped, it is with a view to remembering His pirtues, so that we may cultivate them in ourselves and attain the same status. Every soul must reap the fruits, pleasant or painful, of all it has done; for it is, on the last analysis, the architect of its own fortune.