Parmatma Prakash

Author(s): Yogindra Acharya
Publisher: Central Jaina Publishing House

Page 19

14
INTRODUCTION,
years ago, has gradually yielded to irreligiousness and impiety. That tiine can affect the beliefs of men seemis wonderful, but no one who is aware of the influence of food on mind and of mind on beliefs is likely to find fault with the statement. The productive capacity of soil is directly affected by the forces of nature operating on our globe in the fifth and sixth periods, and physical and mental worry directly result from bad and insufficient nourishment. Stature is also affected by food and the triode of living, and it only needs a couple of wars like the present Europeau struggle to wipe out the traces of the six-foot men. Even the conditions of life are daily growing more and more difficult, and the cost of living is going up. Nerves, too, are becoming a little too prominent in civilised society, and the less civilised are dying of malignart diseases. All these circumstances must tend to weaken the resisting powers of life, and the shortening of stature must inevitably follow in their track.
To the Jaina these prophetic statements of the sacred Scriptures are not open to doubt, coming as they do from the holy mouths of the Oinniscient Tirthankaras. It is not that his belief is blind or unreasoning; on the contrary, deep meditation on the Scriptural text has over and over again convinced him of its accuracy in respect of all particulars determidable by reason. He is, therefore, compelled to accept those matters also which fall outside the natural pale of his intellect. His reason assures him that the Great Ones were Omniscient Gods, and had absolutely no interest in making a false statement on matters of geography and the like, which, by the way, are not the essentials of religion proper. The Jaina is not ignorant of the conclusions arrived at by modern science, but he also knows that the conclusions of the moderus are not based on anything approaching the Omniscience of the Holy Ones, and cannot be put higher than statements so highly probable as to approach within a certain degree of truth. When the modern astronomer smiles at the crude notions of the ancient Hindus, he conveniently forgets the fact that the calculations of the derided Iudian possess no less accuracy than his own, in spite of the wrong notions which he is supposed to be obsessed with about the nature of the motions of the sun, the moon and the other planets,