Holy Image, Holy Truth

Summary

In “Holy Image, Holy Truth” the author, Leona Smith Kremser, recounts a deeply personal journey that led her from a family of hunters and meat‑eaters in America to a life devoted to Jainism. Growing up in the 1960s, she intuitively rejected the slaughter of animals and, at considerable social cost, became a vegetarian long before she encountered a philosophical justification for her choice. Feeling spiritually adrift, she searched the public library in San Francisco for non‑Christian religions and was struck by a single sentence describing Jainism as a way of life based on non‑injury to all living creatures. The idea that compassion extended even to animals was completely new to her and awakened a profound curiosity. A reference librarian introduced her to the World Jain Mission in Ajmer, and through their magazine “Voice of Ahimsa” and personal correspondence she began to study Jain principles. Kremser’s intellectual engagement soon transformed into a spiritual awakening when she received the book “Religion of Tirthankaras,” whose colour plates depicted the images of the twenty‑four Jinas. One image in particular, a depiction of the twenty‑second Tirthankara Lord Aristanemi (Neminatha) at Kambadahalli, overwhelmed her with its beauty and serenity. Although she had initially treated Jainism as simply a non‑violent alternative to Christianity, the luminous presence within that sacred image touched her heart and led her to what she describes as her spiritual home. She writes that the image of Lord Neminatha reached beyond intellect to awaken in her a sense of the “pure soul” and the aspiration for inner purity. Over the ensuing months she corresponded with Jain scholars and monks, learned the ethical principles of ahimsa, and came to venerate all twenty‑four Tirthankaras. Yet she confesses that her deepest devotion remains with the glowing lotus‑like image of Aristanemi that first moved her life into infinity. The narrative closes with a prayerful affirmation, “You are a Pure Soul, I bow to You because I, too, want to be pure,” encapsulating the transformative power that sacred images and the Jain ethos of non‑injury can have on a seeker from a radically different cultural background.