Religious Problem in India

Author(s): Annie Besant
Publisher: Theosophist Office Adyar

Page 47

JAINISM
BROTHERS : we shall find ourselves this morning in a very different atmosphere from that in which we were yesterday, and in which we shall be to-morrow. We shall not now have round us the atmosphere of romance, of chivalry, that we find both in the faith of Islām and in that of the Sikhs. On the contrary we shall be in a calm, philosophic, quiet atmosphere. We shall find ourselves considering the problems of human existence looked at with the eye of the philosopher, of the metaphysician, and on the other hand the question of conduct will take up a large part of our thought; how man should live: what is his relation to the lower creatures around him; how he should so guide his life, his actions, that he may not injure, that he may not destroy. One might almost sum up the atmosphere of Jainism in one phrase, that we find in the Sūtra Kritinga,* that man by injuring no living creature reaches the Nirvāṇa which is peace. That is a phrase that seems to carry with it the whole thonght of the Jaina : peace-peace between man and man, peace between man and animal, peace everywhere and in all things, a perfect brotherhood of all that lives. Such is the ideal of the Jaina,
* iii., 20.