The Key of Knowledge by Champat Rai Jain (C.R. Jain)

PREFACE
“The Key of Knowledge” does not claim to be a new Scripture, nor is it intended to found a new religion or a new sect. It is merely what its title indicates— a ‘key,’ with the aid of which all the locked doors of wisdom might be unlocked, enabling its possessor to enter into them and to see for himself the priceless treasures which have remained hidden from common view so long. Its chief value will be found to lie in its power of reconciling the numerous religious doctrines which have hitherto been regarded as irreconcilable.

It is not likely that every reader would find its perusal interesting. There is a certain class of people who do not care to think on the vital problems of life for themselves, and are ever content to be guided by the thoughts of others. For such and others who take no interest in religion the book is not meant. It is meant only for those, in the first instance, who ‘labour and are heavy laden' and whose souls are panting for rest and for a breath of the air of freedom. They will find the ‘yoke easy and the burden light’.

The book lays no claim to elegance of diction, and the critic would be wasting his breath if he merely criticised its literary merit or style. Thought-stimulating criticism is, however, always wholesome, and the author would be happy to have his errors pointed out, if any.

The author does not pretend to be a learned man in any sense of the word. In the following pages he has merely put down the chain of reasoning which brought satisfaction and rest to his soul, in the hope that others also might be benefited thereby, if they have an earnest longing to understand themselves and the great mystery which surrounds existence. It is possible that in dealing with the vast range of subjects discussed in the book he may have unwittingly trodden upon the corns of some; if so, his excuse is that the causing of pain is not intentional. In an earnest search for Truth, there is no room for an apology.

The best method of studying the “Key of Knowledge” indeed, of every other work on education and religion is to meditate on its passages, not to skip over them erratically. It would be much better not to read the book at all than to read it in a hurry. It is well to bear in mind that knowledge is like food, and becomes ours only when it is absorbed, assimilated and digested by the intellect.

Serious confusion is apt to arise unless the standpoints of Idealism and Realism are constantly kept in mind. The change from the one to the other is sometimes so abrupt and without warning, that nothing but the reader's natural intelligence can come to his rescue. An endeavour has been made to point out all such changes, but the injunction is thought necessary to put the reader on his guard. A full grasp of the Jaina doctrine of Nayavada (the philosophy of stand-points) which finds its culmination in the Saptabhangi (that is, the sevenfold) system of predication is necessary to avoid all such pitfalls. Ordinarily, language fails to deal at one and the same time with any given situation in all its aspects, and is apt to mislead the unwary.

For instance, the word ‘unknowable’ is a contradiction of its own sense. Herbert Spencer could not well have meant what the word signifies. What he meant was that which could not be fully known, not that which was wholly unknowable; for the mere fact that we know that there is a thing, however unknowable be its attributes, removes it from the category of the unknowable or unknown and puts it in that of the known.

The Jaina method is calculated to overcame this difficulty. It maintains that full knowledge of a thing is possible only when it has been looked at from all the different points of view which exhaust the categories of knowledge. For instance, to know merely what a thing is, is not enough; we ought also to know what it is not. But as we are not here concerned with the Saplabhangi, we need not tarry to describe it any further.

It only remains to be added that the ‘Key of Knowledge' does not blindly follow the teaching of any particular sect or creed, not even of Jainism to which sublime and noble faith the author has the privilege of belonging by a happy incident of birth. The views set out herein are based on a study of the nature of things, and the interpretation of the scriptures of some of the prevailing religions has been undertaken only to show that the impartial conclusions of Reason are precisely those which have been set before men in the form of doctrines and myths.

The reader is, however, requested to bear in mind that the author's profound admiration for the wisdom of the ancients compared with which the much boasted knowledge of the moderns is but a mere smattering, does not allow him to launch this book into the world except with the sincerely-felt observation that whatever is beautiful, grand or sublime in the following pages comes from the sages of the past, and all the rest which is wrong and ugly is his.

In dealing with the basic principles of religion it was not found necessary to go into a minute analysis of all the existing religions of the world, inasmuch as a survey of the principles underlying those actually dealt with sufficiently disposes of them all. Besides, a thorough treatment of each religion separately would have swelled the bulk of the book beyond all proportion, voluminous as it already is.

-C.R.J

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