Selected Speeches of V R Gandhi

Author(s): Virchand R Gandhi
Publisher: Vallabhsuri Smarak Nidhi Godiji Jain Derasar Mumbai

Page 88

CONTRIBUTION OF JAINISM TO PHILOSOPHY
Jaina means a follower of Jina, which is a generic term applied to those persons (men and women) who conquer their lower nature (passion, hatred and the like) and bring into prominence the highest. There lived many such Jinas in the past and many will doubtless yet be born. Of such Jinas those who become spiritual heads and regenerators of the community are called Arhats (the deserving ones), or Tirtharkaras (bridgemakers in the figurative sense--that is those by the practice of whose teaching we can cross the ocean of mundane life and reach the perfect state). Hence the Jainas are also called Arhats. In each half-cycle of many millions of years twenty-four Arhats are born. In the present half-cycle the last Arhat, Mahāvīra, was born in 598 B.C., in Kundagrāma, in the territory of Videha. He lived seventy-two years and attained Mokşa (liberation) in 526 B.C.
When European scholars first began to investigate the history of Jainism, they were struck with the similarities between its ethical code and institutions and those of Buddhism; hence they thought that Jainism must be a branch of Buddhism. But thanks to the labours of Jacobi, Bühler and Leumann, it is now conclusively proved that Jainism is much older than Buddhism. At the advent of the Buddha the Jaina sect had already attained a prominent position in the religious world of India.
We may now turn our attention to the contributions made by Jainism to Philosophy. In India, as
74