Vijaydharmasuri

Author(s): A J Sunavala
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Page 70

XIV
JAINISM, ANCIENT AND MODERN. REVIVAL
OF JAIN LEARNING AND CULTURE—THE END AND THE MEANS
STUDY OF JAINISM, ITS VALUE AND IMPORTANCE
By this time a broad design had entered into the mind of Vijaya Dharma Sūri; and, after having well matured it, he thought he must now proceed to put it into execution. Of the three hundred and fifteen millions of people inhabiting India only a million and a quarter to-day profess the Jain faith; yet, in spite of its numerical weakness, Jainism makes its own distinct appeal for a more informed acquaintance with its essential doctrines and tenets. As the students of religious history are well aware, numerous sects and numerous orders arose, new faiths and new beliefs came into existence, in that great province of Bihār, in the sixth century before Christ,—the century which in so many countries witnessed an earnest search and an earnest aspiration after higher truths and nobler lives. Mahāvīra and Buddha and Gosāla all then began propounding their own faiths, and besides these there were many other bold reformers who vied with them in establishing their separate organizations. Yet of all these different organizations, of all these innumerable ancient Orders, one only has sur