Unknown Pilgrims

Author(s): N Shanta
Publisher: Sri Satguru Publications Delhi

Page 37

Presentation
believe in the latter because we are told that it is verifiable by experiment (which is not quite correct), but we have reservations about the former because it is too complicated and because it does not furnish experimental proofs. In both cases we hardly question ourselves about the bases on which these respective systems are built.
Here is not the place for me to go further into disputes concerning the Jaina cosmic vision. What is of interest and importance for us is the possibility of an alternate 'way', still alive today, which undergirds a genuine spirituality. Undoubtedly Jaina cosmography has to be superseded, for it no longer carries conviction to the modern mind. The really important thing is the discovery of a landmark which may serve to relativise the anthropocentricity of our modern age and its identification of Man with historic existence. Heaven and paradise may no longer be the urdhva-loka (the upper world comprising several paradises where divine beings dwell) or the bosom of Abraham, but humans, if deprived of a cosmology in which to situate events and thoughts are asphyxiated or, in modern parlance, self-destroyed.
However the elaboration of such a theme does not belong to a Presentation. Any attempt to explain how we can be mutually enriched by the treasures of others' traditions and how a mutual fecundation can happen is already quite another story...
I would like to end with an invitation to read and ponder this study. My part has been to stimulate such a desire.
Kartika Pūrņima (end of căturmāsya), November 11th, 1981 anniversary of the end of the First World War, Kodaikkanal.