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PEEPING INTO THE FUTURE
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tion of literate men and women the number of those who are really intellectual will be perhaps one in a thousand. It may be safely taken then that the intellectual centre of the world is shifting from India to foreign lands! What is most likely to happen next is the discovery of the soulnature by European and American peoples, which is likely to be made in the course of the current century, thus fulfilling the Jaina prophecy!
Throughout the panchama kāla, however, Religion will continue to exist on our globe. The continuity of the sangha (community of the faithful) will be maintained right up to its very end.
There will be at least one saint, one nun, one · householder, and one pious female follower of the Lord Jinendra in the world. When only three moments will be left in the running kõla, rājā (kingship), agni (fire) and dharma (religion) will be destroyed, one after the other, in the order mentioned! The last king, who will be called Kalki,* will snatch away the food from the
* Kalki also figures in Hinduism; but there he is an allegorical figure and in glaring contrast with Jainism. He is the destroyer of dharma and a wicked persecutor of the pious in the latter, but the establisher of the true Jharına and the destroyer of its foes in the former! This antagonism is, however, only apparent and caused by the employment of an artistic form of allegory which while professing outwardly to differ
