This is Jainism

Author(s): C N Zutshi
Publisher: C N Zutshi

Page 5

PREFACE
“The Jains have no belief in the enternal God, Supreme Ruler and the Creator of the word...... They deny the Fatherhood of God and the whole system of their caste is the negation of the Brotherhood of man."
--Mr. Margaret Stevenson. The above lines from a booklet on Jaiaism by Mrs. Margaret Stevenson have impelled me to write this small book on the essentials of Jainism which is rather a system of philosophical thought, profound and abstruse, than a dogmatic religion in the strict sense that other religions are. My object ip writing this book is twofold: to pick 10 pieces the unwarranied criticism levelled against Jainism; and to tell her, in particular and oibers of her kidncy, in general, what Jainism is and what it stands for in this world of waning belief, which is drifting towards chaos for a crash, being fed on a death-philosophy, denial of spiritual values.
The complete quotation from which the lines cited above have been taken opens the first chapter of this book, in which I have proved to the hilt that Jainism is based on scientific principles, and presents a philosophy of life rooted in the idea, not only of the brotherhood of man, but also of the brotherhood or life, which makes it universal in the sense that it lays down definitc ideas or ideals of man's conduct in life, of his progress and pera section, and of his origin and final goal of blissful cxistence that awaits him.
in the presentation of the subjcci-matier, although onc has perforce to take recourse to subilities of logic, soar to the hicights of philosophy, and scale the summits of one's own spiritual cxperience, I have tried to cmploy