The Forest of Thieves and the Magic Garden: An Anthology of Medieval Jain Stories

I have now finished this book. The stories are very interesting-a fascinating introduction into Jainism and life in medieval India. The stories give insight into Jainism and perhaps Dharma based religions generally. The view held by the anonymous authors of these stories: That the world is a sad miserable place, and that becoming an ascetic monk or nun we will escape the cycle of rebirth and reincarnation, is needless to say a stupid one. This gives many of the stories a sad ending, which the author thought was happy, far too many stories end with "and then they became disgusted with the world and the husband became a monk and the wife became a nun. Then they fasted themselves to death, isn't this wonderful!" Jainism is one of those religions that have become highly overreated in the todays' secular western world, probably because of Jainism's emphasis on non-violence. Hopefully by reading these stories, spiritually empty western readers shall realise that just because a religion is not violent does not make it moral. For indeed many of these stories are highly mysoginistic and encourage men to abandon their wives and chilren in the pursuit of salvation, with the chief villians being wives who resist their husbands desire to join monasteries. I highly recommend this book to everyone.