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Virchand Raghavaji Gandhi : Assessment of a Jaina ... : 91 superior to physical power; renunciation is not escapism but the way to infinite purity and infinite bliss; self-sacrifice is better than self aggrandizement. He believed that Jainism is fit to be a world religion because it stands for spirituality and culture not dogma. Jaina ethics aim at the cultivation of the mind, the heart and the soul along with the lines of truth, non-violence and righteousness, so as to turn hatred into love, love into compassion and compassion into social service. The three jewels of Jainism, Tri-ratna, namely, Right faith(samyak śraddhā), Right knowledge(samyag jñāna) and Right conduct( samyak ācaraņa), underline the need for the establishment of the moral law in society. Jainism rejects the atheistic and materialistic perceptions of the Cārvāka school of Indian philosophy since it believes that the goal of human life is not to attain pleasure but to be perfect in every respect. At the Chicago Parliament (September 11) he described Jainism as a faith older than Buddhism, similar to it in ethics but different from it in psychology.' His paper on Jaina philosophy and ethics (September 25) delineated the cosmology, canon, science, logic, epistemology and moral codes of Jainism in a masterly way. He put forth two parallel but distinct views in the Jaina tradition namely, dravyārthika naya which holds that the universe is without beginning and end, and paryāyārthika naya which holds that creation and destruction take place every moment. He divided the Jaina canon into two parts - Sruti dharma, revealed laws, and cāritra dharma, moral laws, which elevate character. He referred to the nature of nine principles, six substances, six kinds of living beings and four states of existence in the Jaina philosophy, explaining some of them in detail. He described the soul as the divine element in all beings - the element which knows, thinks and feels, but is different from matter which is also eternal. As long as the soul is subject to transmigration, it undergoes the process of evolution and involution. Mokșa, the state of final liberation, is achieved when the soul regains its purest form by relieving itself of the burden of karma and severing all connection with matter. The realized ones look
