The Jainist Soul of Henry David Thoreau

Rev. Noel Rettig Jain

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The Jainist Soul of Henry David Thoreau

By Rev. Noel Rettig Jain

Vol. 16 · No. 2Oct - 1981pp. 85–87English

Reverence For Life

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“If we take those character traits which Thoreau had in common with Bernard Shaw, and add to them the traits which were uniquely Thoreau’s, we find that we have an Occidental Jainist.”
“Basically it was reverence for life ; we see it in the pacifism and vegetarianism of the two men, in Thoreau’s praises of a single flower, in Mahavira’s declaration that even that single flower has a spark of Divinity, in both men’s contempt for the use of the gun or the trap, and in the general inoffensiveness of their manner.”

Works cited in this article

Albert Gilman and Roger Brown, “Personality and Style in Concord”, Transcen-dentalism and Its Legacy, ed, Myron Simon and T, H. Parsons, (Ann Arbor : Univ. of Mich, Press, 1966) p, 104.
Mahavira, The Sayings of Lord Mahavira (Aliganj, U.P, India: World Jain Mission) p.7.
Henry David Thoreau, Walden—Civil Disobedience, ed, Sherman Paul, (Boston : Houghton Mifflin Co,, 1960) p. 63.
Mahavira, p. 6.
Thoreau, p. 62.

Discussed in this article

People

Mahavira 340
Henry David Thoreau
Roger Brown
Albert Gilman
Sherman Paul
Gandhi 23
George Bernard Shaw
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
R. W. Emerson

Places

Walden Pond

Texts & works

Walden—Civil Disobedience
Sayings of Lord Mahavira
Jain Laws Explained
Transcen-dentalism and Its Legacy

Dynasties, sects & groups

World Jain Mission 4

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In this issue

Vol. 16 · No. 2

43–46Jaina Concept of SufferingMohanlal Mehta 47–58The Daughters of Heaven in the Art of the NirgranthaParesh Chandra Dasgupta 59–62NagilaGanesh Lalwani 63–84JainismB. B. Kundu 85–87The Jainist Soul of Henry David ThoreauRev. Noel Rettig JainCurrent article 88–90Books on Jainology

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