Outlines of Jainism

Author(s): J L Jaini, F W Thomas
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

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OUTLINES OF JAINISM
life is a journey on a long line of railway; we stop at different stations, the soul looks out of the carriage window, long at one station, a mere glance at another, attentively and interestedly at one group of men and things, carelessly and casually at another. The six to ten decades of time are not the span of all our lives. An unremembered æon preceded the moment when the mother brought us into the world; and an endless, unknown road lies before the soul when the janitor of death turns the key and we enter, not the limited hall of Yama or Mors, but those free fields, for the journey across which these six to ten decades are our time of preparation ! The soul is immaterial, of course; it has neither touch, nor taste, nor smell, nor colour. It is the essence of wisdom and power, and eternally happy. Who will gauge its possibilities? It is a king in rags, It has faint memories of the richness and glory and power that were its own. But the rags are tangible, and make it feel incredulous of ever having been a king. “How can I be a king and in rags? No one would allow that." Long accustomed to nothing but pain and limitations, the human soul is sceptical about its power and bliss. The hurry of modern civilization, the proud materialism of science, and the brilliant applications of inventions and discoveries to the creature comforts of man are feeding this scepticism. These things are not against religion : they make material life easier, brighter. But they go beyond their province in trying to scoff or laugh out of existence the non-material aspect of human life. It is the beautiful and well-dressed maid becoming