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THE PRACTICAL PATH.
literal sense they adequately express the idea that they denote. Thus the same argument serves to prove at the same time that the karma-theory of the Jains is an original and integral part of their system, and that Jainism is considerably older than the origin of Buddhism."
When we turn to Hinduism to enquire if the karmatheory be the result of the researches of the Hindu rishis, we find only a vague and incomplete conception of it in the early scripture of Hinduism. The conclusion here also is the same, namely, the karma-theory has been adopted by the Hindus from some other creed, for if it were the product of the labour of Hindu rishis, it would bave retained that scientific aspect in the hands of its authors which it undoubtedly wears in Jainism. What is the nature of karma, bondage, emancipation and nirvana, is a subject on which the Hindus seem to entertain the most conflicting and unscientific notions ; indeed, the terms ásrava, samvara, and nirjarâ are some of those which are almost wholly unknown to the Brahmanical creed, inspite of the elaborate intellectualism of the Upanishad-writers who tried to put their ancestral faith on a sound metaphysical basis. The conclusion we are entitled to draw, then, is that Hinduism has itself borrowed that from some other source which is now regarded by some as its own discovery.
The next question is, from whom could the Hindus have borrowed their karma theory? Not from the Buddhists, because Buddhism came into existence subsequently ; nor from any other creed than Jainism which undoubtedly is the oldest of all other religions which preach the doctrine of transmigration, and the only one which explains it in the scientific way.
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