Lord Mahavira and His Teachings

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

Page 64

Lord Mahavira and His Teachings
Prof. M. Oliphant, Director of Physical Laboratories, Australian National University, in his lecture on "Science and Mankind", delivered at the University of Madras, said, “At the present time we face a crisis in the use of science which is of far greater immediate importance and which must be surmounted if our present civilization is to endure. This is the threat of war which has been for mankind a sort of undulant fever of increasing malevolence which now threatens his very existence. Man stands on the brink of a precipice of his own devising”.
"If world war should come again it is certain that most that we value will be destroyed, hundreds of millions will die and the surface of the earth be so despoiled that a recovery may take a million years".
"The banning of weapons of mass destructions offers no solution, for any nation facing defeat abandons all scruples and uses every weapon which could decimate the enemy. Excuses can always be found for the use of any diabolical weapon in retaliation”.
The world itself looks as though it is on the verge of complete destruction. Man with the help of his scientific knowledge has rolled the globe and placed it on the jaws of death. In the light of this situation, what is the solution that Jainism can offer to avoid war and establish permanent peace? Jainism has been teaching that soul or atman is the only precious thing in the whole world. Nothing is comparable to it. The scientist himself who has discovered so many wonderful things was able to do so only because of his own soul which is, in other words, his knowledge.