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INTRODUCTION
Jainalogy is a vast subject or rather consists of a number of subjects each of which is immense in its extent and content. It is a matter of gratification that the canonical literature attracted the attention of scholars for the first time and authorized translations of some of the Āgamas in the Sacred Books of the East Series and outside have gone a long way in acquainting the academic world with the basic doctrines and principles of Jaina religion and ethics. The contributions of the later masters in the field of logic, epistemology and metaphysics are literally stupendous. In the field of logic and epistemology the English translation of Hemacandra's Pramānamīmāṁsā, a standard authoritative work on the subject, by my revered teacher Professor Dr Satkari Mookerjee, M.A., Ph.D., Asutosh Professor and Head of the Department of Sanskrit, Calcutta University, and my humble self is expected to enable a modern student of philosophy to have a dependable and fairly comprehensive knowledge of the contribution of the Jaina thinkers. As regards the philosophy of Anekāntavāda, it has received a thorough treatment and exposition in the work The Jaina Philosophy of Non-absolutism of my revered teacher. The paper on Anekāntavāda by Professor K. C. Bhattacharya is an outstanding and illuminating exposition of the fundamental logical attitude of the Jaina philosophers. It was felt by me that a study of Jaina philosophical thought could not be perfect without a knowledge of its evolution from its ancient moorings in the Agamas, a large number of which is happily still extant. In the present work I have addressed myself to this difficult task. I thought it imperative that a modern scholar should have a fair acquaintance with the spiritual and religious milieu in which Jainism is found to take its rise. It must be admitted that Jainism was not an exotic overgrowth on the soil. It arose in the midst of currents and cross-currents of spiritual and philosophical upheaval which characterized the times when Mahāvīra and Gautama Buddha strenuously engaged themselves in their missionary work. I did not dare to go further back beyond the Āgamas for want of documentary evidence, although it is claimed by the orthodox adherents of the Jaina faith that Mahāvīra only promulagated an ancient doctrine which had been preached by an unbroken succession of tirthankaras whose activities were spread over thousands and thousands of years before the last tirthankara made his advent.
In the first chapter I have tried to give an estimate of the distinctive trends of thought and attitude of the Vedic seers, the Buddha
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