Religious Problem in India

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

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THE RELIGIOUS PROBLEM IN INDIA
delusion, Raga, desire, Dresha, hatred, and of course their opposites, for the one cannot be thrown off without the other; until at last he becomes the Jiva complete and perfect, purified from all evil, omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent, the whole universe reflected in himself as in a mirror, pure consciousness, "with the powers of the senses, thongh without the senses;" pure consciousness, the knower, the Supreme.
Such then is a brief outline of the views, the philosophic views, of the Jainas, acceptable surely to every Hindu, for on almost every point you will find practically the same idea, though put sometimes in a somewhat different form.
Let us look more closely at right conduct, for here the Jaina practice becomes specially interesting; and wise are many of his ways, in dealing especially with the life of the layman. Jainas are divided into two great bodies: the layman, who is called a Shravaka, and the ascetic, the Yați. These have different rules of conduct in this sense only, that the Yați carries to perfection that for which the layman is only preparing himself in future births. The five rows of the Yați, which I will deal with in a moment, are also binding on the layman to a limited extent. To take a single instance: the vow of Brahmacharya, that on the Yati imposes of course absolute celibacy, in the layman means only temperance and proper chastity in the life of a Grhastha. In this way the vows, we may say, run side by side, of ahimsa, harmlessness, sunriți, truthfulness, asteya, not taking that which