Ahimsa - The Science Of Peace

..."While much of the profound knowledge of Jains has become extinct, whatever still remains buried in literature is enough for generations of scholars to study, evaluate, and revive for the benefit of humanity. The ideas put forth by the Jain thinkers were revolutionary not only for their times but continue to be so even today. In the remote past, when the creation of the earth and sky, and all we see was attributed to some omnipotent all pervading entity by almost every school of thought, the Jains said that the universe is without a beginning, ever changing and endless.

Mahavir expressed the idea in simple words - ‘There never was, neither is, nor will be a moment when this universe did not exist, is not existing, and will not exist. But at the same time, its apparent form continues to change with the passage of time.’ Such knowledge should never be neglected or discarded, and if frozen within the ice of misdirected tradition, it should be thawed out and revived.

The purpose of this work is not to enter a scholastic debate of establishing or disputing some philosophical statement or supporting or disproving the origin and period of some other statement. Its main theme is the religious disciplines prescribed for the citizen, the common man, by the Jain philosophers. Once understood in modern context, they will automatically raise the curiosity of people who have active interest and dedication towards reviving lost values for the benefit of humanity. They might go deeper and dig out the philosophical truth from the heaps of religious jargon."...