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JAINISM V/s CHRISTINITY
The teaching of Jainism is that the essential part of man is his soul and that it is a immortal
blissful, omniscient and omnipotent. That is why to say by nature it is divine.
The Christian teaching endores this. The fact that Jesus recognised the existence of soul and knows
its worth is seen in his question by st. Mathew:-
“What is a man profited if he shall join the whole world and loss his soul or what shall a man give in
exchange for his soul ?”
And Arnolius , one of the first church Father asks:
“For what are we men but souls shut up in bodies?”
As regards the attributes of soul Gregory Thanmatugas, another of the
fathers writes as to its immortality:-
“.......................... Consequently soul being simple and not made up of diverse parts but being
uncompound and indissoluble must be in virtue of that incorruptible and immortal.”
Of its invate blissfulness St. Paul says
“The fruit of the spirit is ...........joy, peace.” And in speaking of this Christ says.”
“Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross.”
In connenction with the omniscience of soul, st. Mathew reports Jesus declaring:-
“Ye are the light of the world” According to st. Johan he says further.
The holy ghost shall teach you all thing”
“In whim are hidall the treasures of wisdom & knowledge.”
Jesus accepts the divinity of soul. According to St. Luke, he says;
“For behold the Kingdom of God is within you” And St. Johan repeats his teachings,
“I said, ye are Gods.”
Jainism taught that by embodying itself in matter the soul thereby crippbles itself because in that state its divine attiture and attributes cannot function. Inspite of being immortal , the soul embodied is subject to birth and death , bliss and joy are transformed into a little happiness diluted with much misery, omniscience is vitalated by dire consequences too rarely leaveved by enlightenment. This debasing of the divine soul, Jainism preaches is what is meant by sin, which the Christian teaching corroborates.
St. Paul states his belief that :
“All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”
He further asserts:-
“For there is not a just man on earth that doeth good and sinneth not.”
In his plullippian Epistle he call the body “Vile, & elsewhere laments.
“O wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”
“Of the fathers origin declares that no one is clean from filthiness, even if his life lasted but a single day. And claiment has it:
“The soul is not capable of suffering without flesh”
St. Paul demands the sacrifice of the body:
“I beseech you, therefore, brethren by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice wholly acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service.”
We return now to Jainism’s three fold path to salavation to see that it is also part of the Christian doctrine and like Jainism the Christians emphasises the necessity of all the three-Right Faith. Right knowledge and Right conduct. Colement teaches:-
“It is therefore, of no advantage to them after the end of life even it they do good works now, it they have no faith.” And Right Faith is........... a compare hensive knowledge of the essentials. And knowledge is the strong and sure demonstration of what is received by faith and built upon faith....... conveying the soul on to infallibility , science and comprehension.”
Again clement has it,
“Knowledge is therefore quick is purifying ........... Hence also with ease it removes the soul, to what is akin to the soul, divine and holy and by its own light conveys man through the mystic stages of advancement till it restores the pure in heart to the crowning place of rest.”
Finally St. James asks:
“What does if profit, my brethren, through a man say he hath faith and hath no works? Can faith save him? If a brother or a sister be naked and destitute of daily food and one of you say unto him Depart in peace be ye warmed and filled , not with standing ye give him not there things which are needful to the body; what doth is profit? Even so faith if it hath not works is dead, belong alone.”
Jesus himself sums up the doctrine of salavation in one pregnant sentence “I am the way, the truth & the life.”
St. John XIV 6
The way is the path leading to the goal, hence Right Faith. The truth is Right knowledge . The life is the proper way of living-doing the right things at the right time-hence Right conduct.
In conclusion Christianity even recognises that existence of 24 Tirthankaras and the Sidhas. They are to be found in the Revelation, Chapter IV,V,VI and VII of St.John, where they are referred to as “Four and twenty elders” and a great multitude which no man could number” no “Ten thousand times ten thounsand.” And thousands of thousands” respectively.
It will be seen that two religious run side by side all the way. The only difference is that, as said before, the Christian teachers were unable to give out their knowledge in plain straight forward way, so that the doctrine they were really expounding has to be searched for by the discerning eyes.
While Jainism taught his disciples plasting and factfully, Jesus, his disciples and the first fathers of Christians church were compelled to cloak their teachings in mystifying parables and allegories . They themselves give warning of this and explain why it was restored too. But the warning alos! Havemostly gone unheeded and over since men have instead on reading the Bible as straight history and fact.
Jesus tells his disciples according to St. Duke.
“Unto you is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God; but to others in parables. That seeing they might not see and hearing they might not understand.”
In St.Methews Gospel he gives the reason:
“Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under foot............”
Ch. VII 6.
Fear of persecution and death let the Christian teacher to disguise myth.Jesus in India. A question now arises; Did Jesus Christ visit India? Or else how did he come to know about Jainism , its princeples and its 24 Tirthanakaras , who, it is insisted, are alluded to as the 24 elders?
There is not the least doubt that after being carried to Eygpt, where he lived till the death of King Hero, Jesus visited India. Mr. Nocholas Notovitch a Russian, who extensively travelled in the Himalayas in 1877 in his book ‘The Unknown like of Jesus’ and Mr. H.S.Spencer Lewis in ‘The Mystical life of Jesus’ have brought out certain facts which compel attention.
In the course of his travel Mr. Nicholas Notvitch learned from the Chie Lumaof Ladakh Monastry that there existed very ancient memories dealing with the lifeof Jesus Christ in the archs at Lohasa and that a few of the monastaries possessed copies and translation of these previous chronicles. During his sojourn in Leh, the Capital of Ladakh, Mr. Notovitch visited the Himis monastery on the outskirts of the city, where he was informed by the Lama that their library contained a few copies of the manuscripts in question with the aid of the inter-preter who translated the Tibetan language, Mr. Notovitch carefully translated the verses as they were read by Lama, who told him that the rolls, which treated the life of Jesus and which were brought from India to Nepal, and from Tibet, were written in the Pali language and were then at Lhasa. But they had a copy of the same in the Tibetan language at the Himis monastery.
The version , asserts Notovith was written within three or four years after the death of Christ from the testimonies of eyewitness and is more likely to bear the stamp of truth than the narratives of the Evangelists, who wrote the diverse epochs so long after these events took places.
According to the manuscript when Jesus attained the age of thirteen, he left his father’s house went out of Jerusalam and in company with some merchants travelled towards Sind. The fame of his name spread along the Northern Sind and when he passed through the country of the five rivers and the Rajputana the Jains begged him to remain in their midst.
Jesus began by frequenting the temples of Jains, who were amazed at his wonderful an brilliant intellect and requested him to remain with them.
Jesus spent six years at Jagannath (Puri) Rajgrara, Varanasi and other holy cities studying the language 0f the country and the Sanskrit tongue which enbled him to dive deeply into various religious doctrines , philoshophy , medicine and mathematics.
He found much to condemn in Brahmin Laws and customes and enterned into public debates with them, who strove to convince him of the sacred character of their established customs. Among other things, Jesus particularly censured, was their injustice of humiliating ,the Shudras saying that all are equal in the eyes of God.
Seeing that the people beginning to embrace the doctrines of Jesus, the Branhmins resolved to assassinate him. But being fore-warned he lelf Puri and took refuge in the mountains of Nepal.
The absence of any evidence that Jesus was in some other country than India, when he was between 10 and 30 lends a certain element of plausibility to the thesis.
(Blitz Aug. 31, 1957)
Jesus Christ not only spent the formative period of his life in India but he also died here in India . This idea will be contested by those who believe that the Great Master was crucified to death in Palestine. There is not the least doubt that the he escaped from the accursed death on the cross (Bible Deu 21:23) To avoid dwelling at any length on the subject, let us cite the following Quotation.‘The son of man is delivered to the hands of man and they shall kill him, and after that he is killed, he shall rise the third day’.
Jesus himself discloses the following question: (18)
“Behold we go upto Jerusalam and the Sone of man shall be betrayed unto the chief Priests and unto the scribes and they shall condemn him to death.(19) And shall deliver him and the third day he shall rise again.”
(St. Mathew 18-19)
She is come afore had to amount my body to the burying.“Be not affrightened . Ye Seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified; he is risen; he is not here;
behold the place whre they laid him. But go your way, till his disciple and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee: there Shall Ye see him, as he said into you.”
Where than did Jesus die?
See what St. Mathew says in his gospel:
16. Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee into a mountain where Jesus had oppressed them.
17. And when they saw him they worshipped him.
St. Mathew.
The Quran testifies it in an important stamen (23:50) And we made the son mary.3.Mother a sign and gave a shalter on a lofty ground having meadows and springs.
Though the place mentioned herein in Galilee which is perhaps intended to hoodwink the rebel disciples , the lofty mountain having meadows and springs in none other than Srinagar (Kashmir) where there is a tomb Khanyar. The tomb is variously known as Isa sahib. Yues Asaf and Nabi Sahib. It is possible Jesus may have first gone to Srinagar.
The above quotations clearly prove four things:
(i) Firstly what the great German philosopher of the last century Schopenhour expressed:
“Whatever we may say or think to the contrary Christianity has the Indian blood in its veins.”
And that blood we are constrained to admit is Jainism.
(ii) Secondly that the 23 Elders “spoken of in the Revelation of St. John, the Diviner, referred to the 24 Tirthankaras of Jainism.
(iii) Thirdly it is presumed that Jesus visited the Jain temples of both the Digamber and Swetambar sects. The latter, it shold be noticed , put on crows of gold and silver on the heads of the images of the twenty four Lords.
(iv) Fourthly Jesus spent not only the thirteenth of the thirtieth years of his life in India, but on his return to his native place be preached a version of this ancient religion (through not clearly saying so) in Palistine, which come to be known as such after Palitana, called “The city of Temple.” Not only this, the founder of Christianity died in Kashmir which at that time appears to be a strong hold of Jainism . There are even now a few statues of the Jain Tirthankaras in Srinagar, Kashmir Museum.
