Book Title: Religion and Philosophy of the Jainas
Author(s): Virchand R Gandhi
Publisher: Jain International Ahmedabad

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Page 104
________________ 71 SOUL of justice be justified in accepting the death - the voluntary suicide of Mr. B as the proper retribution for the murder committed by Mr. A ? And if he does that, will not the same Judge be arraigned before a superior Court having knowingly abetted the suicide of B? And still we are asked to believe that the guilt of one man can be washed by the suffering of another. But the doctrine of re-incarnation assists us most when we look at the inequality and injustice and evil of the world and seek for solution. Why is one man born rich and the other poor. Why is one man born in Central Africa among the cannibals and the other in the peaceful part of India. Why is Queen Victoria born to rule over territories on which the Sun never sets and why is a labourer of Burma born in Burma to work as a slave in an Englishman's tea-garden, What is the cause of this apparent injustice ? Even those who believe in the personal creator of the universe must believe in this doctrine of reincarnation in order to exonerate God from the charge of maliciousness. And now let us see if the Bible of Christendom assists in upholding this doctrine. In the proverbs of Solomon we find this passage (Proverbs VIII. 22-31). Here all the passages except the last two prove the pre-existence of soul, and not the creation at a certain time. The last two passages even prove a prior physical life. Let us turn to Jeremiah 1.5. “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee.” This shows that the prophets too had existed before. Even in the New Testament there is sufficient evidence for re-incarnation. In John IX.2 a question is put to Jesus by his disciples : Which did sin, this man or his parents that he was born blind ? This refers to two popular theories of the time one that of Moses who taught that the sins of fathers would descend on the children to the third and the fourth generation and the other that of reincamation doctrine. He merely says that neither that man's sin nor his father's sin was the cause of his blindness; he does not deny the pre-existence of that man. For in Galatians Ch. VI.7 we find “for whatever a man soweth that shall he also reap." Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

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