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#o #grate taha 891
banner of Indian life much above the materialistic outlook of the West and has secured an ever green corner for our religion in the hearts of the great. "
12. Lastly, it is to be noticed that the different philosophies that flourished in our country bave emphasised either on the importance of devotion, or conduct or knowledge as the basis of liberation. Jainism pas singularly vocal in insisting that the right path of liberation lay through a unity of all the tbree and the non-development of any one of them meant a step away from the true path of Liberation. How true it is to say that a man of devotion, not backed up by right knowledge and right conduct cannot progress beyond the shallow sentiment of a showy devotee It 'is equally true that knowledge and devotion not strengthened by right conduct have no value in the development of the mind and the soul, since absence of cohesion between the thought and the deed destroys the harmony which would have otherwise developed in such a person
13. These chaanges in the outlook of human life so profusely and freely preached by Jainism and practised by its followers were not confined to the field of religion only The Jains were patrons of great learning and the bistory of South Indian literature is a bisa tory of the power and force wbich Jain thought wielded for centuries over the minds of wnters and readers alike It is impossible to disassociate: religion from the different activities of the mind and the credit of having used religion as a vehicle of higher thought and poetic flights must always go to the Jains whenever the early history of Indian literature comes to be written, It is a boast amongst the critics of modern poetry and act to advocate that love of nature was a new phenomenon infused by the West. Would it be too much to claim that the Jains have always exhibited the highest sense of respect for nature and almost a sort of mystic rapture over the beauties and the serenity of nature by selecting for their holy shrines such bills and Bites of luxuriaat beauty that sing a song of austere, love and veneration, a song that almost lulls the visitors into devotion by a captivating, music of the "Om"?
Here I close my article, but before I do so let me assert once more that it is Jainism that "spaugrated the new period of Indian culture which lasted through the middle ages almost-down to the present time" and now holds out a hope of future rejuvenation and renaissance in all our life, literature and philosophy.
