Course XXVII - Teaching 23: The Jains

The inception of Jainism cannot be determined exactly, since its memory is lost in the first centuries of Hinduism, though it appears formally established in the beginning of Hinduism.
Certain people mistook it with Brahmanic religion and others considered it a lost branch of Buddhism; but it is neither the one nor the other. It is self-formed and based on millenary Vedic teachings. One may say the main formula of a follower of Jainism is: To love any living being and to respect as much animals as humans.
These early nihilistic people do not eat meat, and to a Jain, is a sin to see how an animal is maltreated and not to give it help.
Still today, in the southern district of India, where the majority of the Jains stay, there are numerous veterinary hospitals. This proves an advance over modern institutions devoted to help irrational beings.
The Jains are very severe in their living; one of them never drinks liquor or smokes.
The basic belief of this religion consists of an unconditioned essence and other manifested essence that is ruled by twenty-four spiritual entities: Tirthankaras.
Universal Jainism laws of Creation, moral and ethics are written on holy books called “Siddhanta”, in tamil, their sacred language.
The human soul, called “jiva”, gets out of the very pure bosom of God, descends En earth and is tied, by ignorance, to the sensible worlds; it can be untied from material bonds just by means of austerity, meditation and good works. That is why one finds many “Jaina” of both sexes that are ascetics and dispose of everything just to devote themselves to spiritual life.
This religion also counts on divine help, Edjina, the supreme victor –Ihes in our Symbology– who periodically descends to Earth to help mankind to get rid of the prison of flesh.
But Mahavira is the most revered Divine Incarnation, among the Jains. This eminent being lived about the time of Gautama the Buddha.
He was of noble and rich family, and knew comforts and pleasures of living, but as he begun to study the holy books, to such an extent he loved wisdom that decided to abandon the world in order to live alone in the desert.
He substituted his rich raiment for the coarse cloth of a beggar, and for twelve years practiced austerity and meditation.
Then he began his work with men. He reunited the scattered Jains, explained them their wonderful doctrines and conquered their lives through purity, reinvigorating their religion.
He compiled any holy book, translated from the early language to the language of everyday and puts them within everybody’s reach.
At present, if the Jains are not more than two millions of souls and stay only in India, their religion is known and admired, because of the extreme worthiness and pure customs of its followers.
The exaggerated formality of the Jains has been criticized because they abhor to such an extent to come into contact with impure things that only drink boiled water, they breathe the air in places contaminated by diseases by using a cloth of linen that covers their mouths. Perchance do not our modern sanitarians act the same way?
But the important thing in a religion is not its forms and external rites, but the essence of its purest part.