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(4)
Or like a fish breathe in the morning air In the misty sun-warm water; or with flowers And trees can smile in light at the sinking sun."
The twenty-four teachers that this system of thought has produced, popularly called Tirthnkaras, were, men of right vision and perfect spiritual insight and were fully familiar with the essence of things real and unreal: they had attained perfection through their own selfeffort, purification of thought and action, and complete freedom from any taint of desire. They were therefore, compctent to lay down certain fundamental principles of life and death, which they had intuited through their own spiritual experience.
The Jain philosophy holds that man is yet imperfect but capable of improvement; he can advance in the direction of perfection. Man, is
*Life on earth may be a glorious pilgrimage. not a mere period of endurance if it is recognised that its use may be to make the next life more intense. Browning says in Bishop Bloughram's Apology:
"Why lose this life in the meantime, since its use may be to make the next life more intense ?" And in Cleon, he says, "Why stay we on earth unless to grow?" Progress is the law of life. 'I he following lines in Browning's Sordello vividly and in such modern manner, voice the Jain philosophy which holds that man is capable of improvement: he can advance in the direction of perfection -
"We die; which means to say, the whole's removed, Dismounted wheel by wheel, this complex-gin, To be set anew elsewhere, begin A task indeed, but with a clearer clime Than the murk lodgment of our building-time."
