Lord Mahavira and His Teachings

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

Page 90

Lord Mahavira and His Teachings
were forbidden to eat even tomatoes, onions, potatoes as containing germs of living creatures, and the respect for All Life, for all that grows, and lives on earth and in the air, became an orthodox dogma. The most severe form of Ahimsa is the principle which unites all the four sects of Jainism in their horror of war. Their division into “Digambaras" and "Śvetāmbaras”, into multi-pūjā sects and the two sects which reject all image-worship, Stānakavāsīs and Terāpanthis, should not hide their essential allegiance to the principle of non-violence as the common ground of all Jainas.
Mahatma Gandhi's mother was a Jaina, his guru at Porbandar, in his native city, was an eminent Jaina sage, and his heart was since childhood impressed by the Jaina tradition of Ahimsā which became the guiding star of all his life. The historians of contemporary India should not forget this decisive influence in Gandhiji's career which determined the destiny of the nation.
Mediaeval Hinduism has proclaimed both Jainism and Buddhism "heresies" opposed to the Vedic culture. The Brahmin priesthood saw a danger to their privileges in the fact that both Jainism and Buddhism gave access to the lower castes to higher knowledge, and wanted to monopolize the wisdom of ancient India for themselves as a source of prestige and income. Recent research has dissipated the false pretenses of mediaeval orthodoxy as the sole custodians of Indian Wisdom. The reactionary pandits are fighting a losing battle against the enlightened opinion of critical scholarship which