Communion’ within which all who take refuge find ultimate salvation, consists of the four tīrthas, or ‘orders’, namely, those of (1) sādhu or monk, (2) sādhvī or nun, (3) śrāvaka or lay-brother, and (4) śrāvikā or lay-sister. These four tīrthas are thus, as it were, four boats that will infallibly carry the passengers they bear unto the desired haven of deliverance (mokṣa). Hence the Tīrthaṅkara is one who is the Founder (with a very large F) of the four ‘orders’ that collectively constitute the Communion or Saṅgha.
Another illustration of a term whose meaning may have changed with time is Nirvāṇa. Originally the prefix nir, or nis, was held to be intensive, and hence nirvāṇa, from the root vā, ‘to blow’, came to mean ‘blown out, extinguished’. Thus, according to the early Jainas, Nirvāṇa is that state in which the energy of past actions (karma) has become extinguished, and henceforward the spirit (jīvātmā), though still existent as an individual spirit, escapes re-embodiment, and remains for ever free from new births and deaths. But nowadays some Jainas at least regard the prefix nir as a mere negative, and thus with them Nirvāṇa implies that state in which ‘not a breath’ reaches the emancipated one. The underlying conception is that of a constant steady flame with ‘never a breath’ to make even the slightest tremulous quiver.
Evidently, then, the study of the Jainism of the past, helpful though it be, does not of itself alone suffice to acquaint one accurately with the current phases of that faith, and accordingly some account, more or less detailed, of modern Jainism becomes a distinct desideratum. It is in the hope of supplying this felt need that Dr. Margaret Stevenson has prepared the present volume. She has named it ‘The Heart of Jainism’, and aptly so, for in the writing of it she has been careful to indicate not so much the causes that contributed to the origin and development of that religion as the conditions that now obtain in it, and its present-day observances. The life-blood that is coursing
