Nayakarnika

Author(s): Vinayvijay, Mohanlal Dalichand Desai
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

Page 26

INTRODUCTION.
silent as to the things to be known, but Jainisme points out that right knowledge (Samyak Jnina), right belief or faith (Samyak Dars'ana) and right conduct (Samyak Cháritra), combined together, constitute the path to Nirvána. Analysis shows that right conduct characterises only those beings who possess faith in its power to procure deliverance for the soul from the bondage of Karmas. Thus, no one who is devoid of right belief, or faith, can possibly realise the great ideal of perfection and bliss expressed by the simple word moks'a. Now, right belief depends on right knowledge, and cannot be thought of apart from it. Where knowledge is not made the foundation of faith, where reason does not endorse the formula of belief and where the germ of doubt is not destroyed by the fire of wisdom, nothing but confusion, bigotry, and sin are to be found there ; for the smothering of the voice of intellect can only give us fanatics of bigotry and prejudice ; it can never enable men to. acquire the wisdom of gods which shall make them free. Knowledge, and knowledge alone, then, is the door to power and freedom from bondage. But knowledge is not to be acquired by the perusal of scriptures alone, since the scriptural text has to be understood and reconciled to one's own limited knowledge in the first instance, and where, as in the case of the