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284 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
of his religion ? Because they constitute a way of life which alone can make man righteous.
III
Man’s misery is the result of man’s inequity to man.
Only righteousness can remove this inequity and the resultant misery.
That is why he said that religion must not only preach but must inculcate upon the mind of man the supreme necessity for being righteous in his conduct.
For the purpose of inculcating righteousness religion, he said, had certain other functions to undertake.
Religion must teach man to know what is right and to follow what is right.
Religion must teach man to know what is wrong and not to follow what is wrong.
Besides these purposes of religion he emphasized two other purposes which he regarded as of supreme importance.
The first is training of man’s instincts and dispositions as distinguished from offering prayers or performing observances or doing sacrifices.
This the Buddha has made clear in his exposition of Jainism in the Devadaha Sutta.
What Mahavira, the founder of Jainism, affirmed was that whatsoever the individual experiences—be it pleasant or unpleasant, all comes from acts done in former births.
That being so, by expiration and purge of former misdeeds and by not committing fresh misdeeds, nothing accrues for the future: as nothing accrues for the future, the misdeeds die away ; as misdeeds die away, misery dies away : as misery dies away, feelings die away : and as feelings die away, all misery will wear out and pass.
This is what Jainism affirmed.
On this the Buddha asked this question: “Do you know that, here and now, wrong dispositions have been got rid of and right dispositions acquired?”