hair, which had grown whilst he dallied with sin, and returned to the forest. The Jaina say that such a man, having overcome rāga, would on his death go to svarga.
This was of course an example of wrong love, but the Jaina believe that indulgence in even right affection will hinder one’s attaining liberation, as the pathetic story of Mahāvīra’s greatest disciple, Gautama, shows. It will be remembered that Gautama could not conquer his personal attachment to the great ascetic, and despite all his endeavours he continued to think of him as ‘my master’ and ‘my friend’, thus showing that he had allowed himself to become attached by the roots of his personality to another. Only on the night that Mahāvīra died was he able to overcome all mamatva or feeling of personal devotion and possession. It had been easy for Gautama to give up all outward possessions of wealth and property, it was agony to him to tear out love from his heart. Devout Jaina are very interested in the contrast between this story and that of the Christian disciple, Thomas, who touched the highest development of the Christian faith when his mamatva became perfected, and he could say to his Master: ‘My Lord and my God.’[1]
Our study has now brought us to a most interesting parting of the ways between Jainism on the one hand and both Hinduism and Christianity on the other, for the understanding of which the writer is deeply indebted to both Jaina and Hindu friends, who have taken endless pains to make their view-points clear.
As all personal attachment is burnt up in the glow of asceticism, the true Jaina cannot hold any doctrine of personal devotion (bhakti) to a god such as has inspired so much of the most beautiful Hindu literature. Yet there is amongst some modern Jaina a tendency towards giving to Mahāvīra a devotion which almost resembles bhakti; this may be indirectly due to the influence of
- ↑ St. John xx. 28.
