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SANATAN JAINA.
efforts to have the matter settled in a way whereby the holiness and all the importance of the place as well as their religious feelings may be fully preserved, But all those things proved of no avail. The Government stood as stubborn as the rock not minding in the least the most noble cause of the Jains.
It is a pity that the Government with their experience of the Indian people of nearly 150 Years have not come to realize how dear and valuable a possession is the religion with an Indian. Let the Government understand that the Indian will be ready to surrender his life than to lose his religion. Religion forms the very backbone of his existance. The action of converting the Parasnath Hill into a Sanitarium or sanctioning the permission of erecting bangalows thereon, is most objection able according to the tenets of the Jain Religion and the British Government according to one of the fundamental provisions of the Great Proclamation of 1858, ought to pay the full respects to their religious feelings and susceptibilities. As yet the Jaius have strictly adhered to all the constitutional means but when all their remonstrances, expostulations, and appeals after appeals are set aside and if they are per force placed in a position to lose their dearest possession, a possession which they value above everything else in this world, it is but possible that some of them may be driven to dispair and may join that unrestful elements which have created
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
so much chaos at present in the country and which the Government fear so much.
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Under these circumstances it must be the pious duty of the AngloIndian Papers which pose as the best friends and well-wishers of the Government to suggest some right and just course whereby some peaceful conciliation may be brought about between the Jains & the Government. But instead of that the "Empire" of Calcutta in order to widen the breach between these two parties & to add fuel to the fire already burning within the hearts of the Jains has the following:
STAGE THUNDER.
"Empire":-With every desire to respect the feelings of the Jains their agitation against the conversion of Paresnath into 8 sanatorium is thin. First of all they were argumentative. They waited on the L. G. and put their arguments in front of him. It was a modest and harmless plea in its way. It only amounted to a claim that the Jains should be authorized to
play the part of dog in the manger over the whole range of the Paresnath hills, and that Bengal was to be deprived of a sanatorium and the railway was to have been extended to that part of the country without result. Modest and unassuming as it was it did not appeal to Sir Andrew Fraser, who sat upon it in a speech of great length and courtesy. Then the Jains went on another tack. They sent a medical deputation to Paresnath to report on the healthiness
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