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90 : śramaņa, Vol 65, No. 3 & 4, July-December 2014 the last two or three weeks' alluding to Swami Vivekananda, H. Dharmapala, Narsimhachari and other delegates from India, it was Virchand Raghavji Gandhi who gave a befitting reply. “The oriental bubbles might yet be found heavier than certain bloated balloons of self conceit which were temporarily obscuring a large portion of the horizon.' 4 The Chicago Daily Tribune dated September 26, 1893 reported that the audience was sympathetic, and 'applauded loudly almost every point he scored.'
Exponent of Jainism
Jainism is an outlook of life, a mode of understanding the world, a way to the efflorescence of the soul, as well as a living faith. In its classical mould, the word “Jaina' is more of an adjective than a noun, as it derives from the word Jina which means he who has conquered himself. The history of Jainism goes back to the beginning of time. Its historical evolution, like that of other faiths, has been the result of interaction between a number of factors, forces, ideas and puissant souls, sometime between parallel or even rival schools of thought. Jainism is neither the heir or the rebel child of Hinduism as Christianity is of Judaism, nor a reactionary religious movement. The Supreme Truths in the Jaina faith were revealed to the twentyfour Tīrthankaras - 'ford-finders' - those who help one to cross the ocean of worldly existence' - at different stages of man's evolution. Deriving from the Sramaņa tradition which is many millennia old, Jainism focuses on the purification, elevation and flowering of the human being - an idea which is close to the Mundaka Upanişad (I.1.5), which says that true knowledge comes not through pedagogy but through experience. While Hermann Jacobi (1850-1937) introduced Jainism to the West through his translation of a few Jaina classical texts both into German and English, V R Gandhi may be called the first able exponent of Jainism in America and Europe, who spread its aroma through his insightful talks, discourses and writings. He presented Jainism as an ethico-metaphysical system which lays down that moral power is
