The Place and Importance of Jainism in the Comparative Science of Religions

The comparative science of religions is a new field started by the Sanskrit scholar Professor Max Mueller, whose works include Origin and Growth of Religion and Introduction to the Science of Religion, and whose translations of Indian scriptures into English, such as the Sacred Books of the East, are highly significant. Its roots lie in the English philosophical system of deism and the 18th-century German religious philosophy. Mueller developed it into a separate branch of human knowledge. On the continent, C.P. Tiele, late professor at the university of Leyden in Holland, rebuilt the science with his Gifford lectures, Elements of the Science of Religion. In Great Britain, the Hibbert lectures in England and the Gifford lectures in Scotland, starting with Mueller's first lecture ‘Natural Religion’, promoted the science as a special discipline. The aim is to gain thorough knowledge of all religions to classify them, find their essential substance, and determine the moments of religious development. A key question is fixing the limits of religions, specifically the upper limit of religious ideas. The author argues that religious development has several steps equivalent to the development of human culture in general. To examine this, the author reviews the religious development of the Semitic and Aryan races. The Semitic race's development starts from Babylonia, spreads westwards, and leads to the Jewish and Christian religions, with Christianity's worldly power established by the apostle Paul. The Aryan race, whose original seat the author suggests was in the extreme North, either side of the Ural ranges, migrates to the south-east and south-west. The south-west stream goes to Iran and India, bringing a highly developed religion. Islam also arose in the Semitic territory, spreading to influence Aryan religions. The Aryan religions disappeared from most of the world, except in the extreme south and east of Asia, and were contaminated by foreign influences, such as in Tibetan Buddhism. Jainism is one of these offsprings of the old Aryan religion. The author examines the main features of the Aryan religions, noting the original components of the Pre-Aryan religion are the emphasizing of the intellectual conception of the world and the worship of nature. In India, the religion reached its fullest development, with advanced pessimism and formalism seen in the Rgveda, rising to a detrimental height in Brahmanism, which becomes anthropocentric rather than theocentric. This is mostly different from the Semitic type, where devotion and mystical inspiration lead believers to withdraw from reality. The old Aryan religion was also influenced by Semitic ideas in Iran and by pre-Aryan religions in India, which the author reconstructs as two types: one fetishistic with exuberant devotion and mystical excitement, and the other animistic with a strong inclination to asceticism. Under the influence of these elements, the original Aryan religion developed in several sects.

Summary reviewed by a volunteer editor.