Sacred Philosophy

Author(s): Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: Champat Rai Jain
Catalog link: https://jainqq.org/explore/006712/1

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Sacred Philosophy C. R. JAIN.

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SACRED PHILOSOPHY.

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zrI paramAtmane namaH LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, The subject of my discourse before you to-day is the Jaina Siddhanta. The term Jaina Siddhanta is expressive of the Jaina view of things, and stands for the ultimate conclusions that have been accepted by my co-religionists, the Jainas. According to Jainas, philosophy and rational thought are wedded together indissolubly, so that the divorcing of the one from the other would be fatal to both. For rational thought must tend towards the comprehensive consistency of a systematic science to rise above the petty trivialities of the world, and philosophy must adhere closely to rigid rationalism to secure the generally neglected harmony between imagination and actuality or fact. This is destructive of the work of those who employ their reason solely to build up netaphysical props for their own views as well as of those who allow themselves to be exclusively engaged in devising argumentative support for

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2 their scriptures. For, if the individual bias is allowed, from the very start, to sway the reason in favour of one particular system, and, therefore, necessarily against all the rest, how shall choice be made between the scripture or system of truth and that which is corrupt and false. For the same reason intuition has to be left out of account, till at least such time as a teacher is discovered whose intuitive wisdom can be relied upon as sound and free from error and flaws of any kind whatsoever. It is obvious that if private intuitions be allowed to sway philosophical investigation, every lunatic will have a right to fill the chair of philosophy and every morbid subject of hysteria and hallucination to rank as a patron of science and metaphysics. We may, then, define philosophy as the process or expression of reflection on the facts of experience, culminating in an all-comprehensive consistent system of thought that is explanatory of the nature of our surroundings, and, therefore, capable of being harnessed into our service for the obtainment of the highest good. Here we may be seen to part company from those who would dabble in metaphysics as a mere scholarly pastime or for its own sake, as they put it. As is well known to scholars, this practical utility of philosophy has not been kept in view in the western systems, and one cannot but notice the deprecatory

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tone for the opposite view in the following passage from the Encyclo. Religion and Ethics (Vol. IX, pp. 846-847, under the heading "Philosophy"): " Philosophical enquiry was not a purely scientific matter in India. The knowledge of the nature of things was aimed at, not for its own sake, but for a practical purpose. It was regarded as a factor in the great work of deliverance from Transmigration." Curiously enough, another writer defines philosophy in the earlier part of the same article (p. 846) as "the process or expression of rational reflexion upon experience," thus recognising its close affinity with actuality and observation, hence with experiment and science. But if philosophy is so closely affiliated to science, it can never be impractical, since the hall-mark of every true science consists in nothing other than utility, hence, practicability. To put the same thing in different words, since philosophy is defined as the process or expression of rational reflexion upon experience, it must always remain in the closest touch with experience, and, therefore with the practical side of life, what is termed experience being, in reality, nothing but the actual knowledge gained by personal test, trial or proof. Such is the position of Jainism with respect to philosophy. The very first shloka of the Jaina Bible, otherwise known as the l'attvartha Sutra, insists on the harnessing of Right Knowledge along

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with Right Faith and Right Conduct for the attainment of what I have described here as the highest good. Our conclusion, then, is that philosophy when divorced from practicability is like a rotting carcass, inert, insensible and useless. We must now actually set out on a philosophical enquiry. Of course, the one burning question is : what is this world we perceive and live in ? But the form that it generally takes with the non-Jainas is: whence is the world ? by whom was it made ? and when? The Jainas object to these questions, as they are liable to cause confusion of thought and to confound the real point. The proper question is truly only: what is this world? The investigator in putting the question about a beginning parts company from actuality, and starts from a point which has never been experienced by himself or by any one else; for no one has ever seen the beginning of the world, nor is it even a possibility of mental conception, since he who will conceive it will have to get rid of the existing actuality, namely, concrete nature, before he can place himself at a point in the current of time in the past when the world had still to be born. Let a man try to do this in thought and he will soon perceive that it is simply impossible to conceive of any rational method with which to effect the total disappearance

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5 or destruction of that which is a reality of existence to-day. And if it is impossible to think that this world can ever be totally destroyed in the future, it must be equally impossible to think that it could ever have been destroyed in the past. In different language, the world we live in and perceive must have existed yesterday as fully as it exists to-day, and also, and in the same manner, and for the same reasons, the day before yesterday, the day before that, and so on and so forth, till we find ourselves plunged into the bewildering domain of what is implied in the infinity of time that is known as the past. The conclusion we arrive at, then, is that there never was a moment of time in the past when the world might be said to have had no existence; that is to say, in different words, that the universe we live in is eternal. The question: Who made it ?,' then, is one which never can arise in rational metaphysics. The next question is, what does this eternity of the world signify, since we perceive changes going on all round us? It was this aspect of things which led Buddha to regard all things, without an exception, as evanescent and imperma nent. But it is obvious that a notion like this can never find support in science or philosophy, inasmuch as the law of conservation of matter and

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6 energy which has been very accurately determined by modern Physics is there to demonstrate its falsehood. Substance for this reason has to be defined as a permanent subject of changing accidents or modes (See The Science of Thought," Footnote, page 11). The Imperial Dictionary defines it in the following words: 66 "In philosophy that which underlies or is the permanent subject or cause of all phenomena, whether material or spiritual; the subject which we imagine to underlie the attributes or qualities by which alone we are conscious of existences, that which exists independently and unchangeably, in contradistinction to accident, which denotes any of the changeable phenomena in substance, whether these phenomena are necessary or causal, in which latter case they are called accidents in a narrower sense. The relation of accident to substance is called the relation of inherence, and corresponds to the logical relation of subject and predicates, because the substance is the subject to which are assigned the qualities, states and relations as predicates; substance itself is the essence which is capable of these phenomena, and, in spite of these changes, remains the same. Substance is, with respect to the mind, a merely logical distinction from its attributes. We can never imagine it, but we are compelled to assume i'. We cannot conceive substance shorn of its attributes, because those attributes are the sole staple of our conceptions; but we must assume that substance is something different from its attributes. Substance is the unknown, unknowable subtratum on which rests all that we experience of the external world." This is almost word for word the view of the Jaina Siddhanta, which defines substance as that which is

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characterised by origination, destruction and continuance at one and the same time. For instance, when we melt a bar of gold there is the origination of the molten state, the destruction of the "bar-ness," and, underlying them both, the continuity of gold as gold. Nor can we regard the destruction of the bar and the origination of the resultant molten liquidity as being successive events in time, for no substance can be imagined without a form, and yet the piece of gold in the crucible can have no form, on the supposition, in the interval after the destruction of the solid form and before the manifestation or assumption of the liquid state. To put the same argument in a different form, if the destruction of 'bar-ness' is not simultaneous with the origination of the liquid state, the bar will be destroyed first and its melting, i.e., the assumption of the liquid form, will take place afterwards. But this is absurd, for gold must exist in some form in the interval and the supposition leaves it altogether without one. This shows that liquefaction is the very form of the destruction of 'bar-ness,' so that the destruction of an existing state and the origination of the immediately succeeding one cannot but occur at one and the same time. This is sufficient to dispose of Kshanik-vada, i.e., the philosophy which denies the permanence of substances. With reference to the notion that the world was

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made by a creator, it will be observed that substances are only bundles of qualities by means of which alone we are conscious of their existence. For instance, gold has materiality, brightness, softness, yellowness, etc., etc., for its attributes, and all our knowledge concerning its nature is simply the sum-total of all its attributes. This amounts to saying that qualities inhere in substances, which, as stated above, are but bundles of attributes. Now, with reference to the hypothesis of creation, we have already seen that substances are eternal and uncreate, so that no one can be said to be their author. This narrows down the field of enquiry to the question : whether any one does or ever did manufacture the world from these substances ? But before we hold that a living being is the maker of this world, it is necessary to establish the physical contact between him and the material which he may be said to have moulded into a cosmos. It must also be shown that the substances in nature did not perform their appropriate function prior to the making of the world. The physical contact between the maker and the raw material of the world is necessary, because nowhere in nature do we observe a potter succeeding in the making of a pot unless he can physically operate upon the lump of clay which is to assume the desired shape in his hand. Now, according to all the systems of

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theology prevalent in our midst to-day, the supposed maker of our world is pure Effulgence, having neither hands nor feet, so that it is impossible for such a being to directly operate upon any material. This should ordinarily be sufficient to dispose of the matter, but prejudice is not so easily satisfied. We shall now be told that at a word of command--a sort of creative fiat-of this world-architect things began to shape themselves and assumed the forms he desired them to take. Observation, however, belies even this assumption ; for nowhere in nature do we find a case of unintelligent raw material obeying the command of a manufacturer. I may fret and foam and command as loudly as I am capable of doing, but it is certain that the papers lying before me on the table will not budge a hair's breadth from their places unless I put myself in a position to deal with them physically in some way, whether directly by hands, or indirectly through some visible or invisible mechanism. It is thus clear that no one could have ever made the world by a mere word of command. As for the second point, i.e., the non-functioning of substances prior to the making of the world, it is obvious that things cannot be imagined as lying altogether functionless prior to the commencement of the process of manufacturing. As said in the Practical Path (pp. 6 and 7, Footnote):

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10 "Theology, no doubt, holds that the world-process is maintained by the word of its god without whose command nothing whatsoever can ever take place in the universe, but then theology has no reply to give to the question : why should things be endowed with different attributes if they can function only in obedience to the word of a god? If we do not deceive ourselves with false conclusions, we should observe that different substances exercise different functions, so that none of them can perform the function of another. If it were otherwise, water might be imagined to perform the function of fire, fire of air, air of consciousness, and so forth. But the supposition is so highly absurd that no sane mind has ever considered it possible. We must, then, assume that each substance has its own special function which cannot be performed by anything else. But what is function, if not the particular mode of exist. ence of a substance? This amounts to saying that no substance can exist if its function be annihilated even for a moment, e.g., tire would cease to be fire the moment it ceased to perform its specific function of burning and production of heat. Now, the supposition that the substances of nature stand in need of the command of a god to perform their function is possible only on the assumption that they do not function except when ordered to do so by him. But this is a clear case of impossibility, for a substance cannot both exist and not exist at the same time, its function being only the particular mode or manner of its existence. It follows, therefore, that no one can possibly interfere with the function of existing substances." We thus conclude that the functioning of substances is due to their own nature and not the outcome of any one's order or decree. If we do not allow our preconceived notions to shut us out of truth, we should observe that natural law, by which term is meant the unvarying orderliness and regularity of causation of natural events arising

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11 from the attributes, properties and functions of substances, suffices for the world-process, so that the supposition of a creative fiat to explain the starting point of an imaginary beginning of things is clearly a purely gratuitous assumption. The argument that the observed general harmony of nature, especially of organs and limbs, e.g., the co-ordination between the functions of the mouth and the stomach in the mastication and digestion of food, furnish evidence of design and prove the existence of a world-maker, is easily met ; for, in the absence of hands in the supposed author of things, the things must have had to form themselves. This is tantamount to saying that the substances of nature are endowed with a capacity to assume appropriate forms by virtue of their inherent chemical properties. It is clear that the food which is converted into flesh, blood, bones, saliva,, faeces etc., etc., is not transformed into these forms by a god getting into the human or animal stomach and there changing its contents into so many different things, but in consequence of the chemical action of the secretions of the organs of digestion on the ingredients of the meal. The dignity of a god, it will be further seen, is not enhanced by being regarded as the maker of all sorts of things, including such unsightly filthy ones as saliva, faeces and the like, so that it is

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12 nothing short of blasphemy to ascribe the authorship of the world to one whom we are ready to acknowledge as a living embodiment of pure, perfect holiness. We thus find ourselves left with the eternal substances of nature, which, with their different properties, suffice to account for the world-process. As regards the enumeration of these substances, Jainism has it that there are two main kinds of substance, jiva and ajiva, the former signifying that which is endowed with life and the latter, its opposite, the non-living. In modern thought, spirit and non-spirit would be fair equivalents of these terms. Of these, the class non-spirit itself comprises no less than five different substances, namely, matter (termed pudgala in the Jaina terminology), Space, Time and two special kinds of ether, the functions of which are to be helpful in the motion and cessation of motion, respectively, of moving things. We thus have six substances in nature, namely, spirit, matter, Time, Space, and the two ethers. As for the proof of their existence, modern science recognises matter and one kind of ether, but has no definite notion about Time and Space, and is still, on the whole, inclined to deny, or at least reluctant to acknowledge jiva as a kind of substance by itself. It is not my purpose here, nor does time permit me at present, to enter into

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13 an examination of all these substances, and I am content to refer you to the work of great Jaina acharyas who have dealt with the subject at length. Those of you who know English will also find it dealt with in my work on comparative religion entitled the Key of Knowledge. I, lowever, propose to examine here the nature of spirit and shall also briefly deal with matter, since these are the two main things the knowledge of whose properties is essential to a thorough understanding of the Jaina Siddhanta, which, as will become clear by and by, is but another term for Religion proper. To begin with, spirit, the living substance or jiva (lit. that which is alive), is characterised by awareness, that is, knowledge and perception. It is different from matter and is not matter, though under certain conditions it is liable to becoming mixed or fused with that substance. When existing in combination with matter it is regarded as ashuddha (impure), and this is the condition of all the souls that have not yet attained nirvana, that is to say, of those that are still involved in transmigration. This is tantamount to saying that when souls become pure, i.e., separated from matter, they obtain nirvana. Pure spirit is omniscient, blissful and immortal by nature. As such, it is termed Paramatman (God); and every soul has the capa

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14 city to become a God by purifying itself. The aim of Religion is to enable the soul to attain to Godhood and to obtain ever-lasting bliss. This, briefly, is the description of spirit in the Jaina Siddhanta. Modern science, however, denies the very existence of spirit as a substance, holding knowledge and perception to be the outcome of special groupings of atoms of matter. The very first question before us now, therefore, is whether consciousness, that is, the faculty of knowledge and perception, appertains to matter or is something different from it? Now, a great deal has been written on the subject by all sorts of writers in modern times, but unfortunately most of it is not to the point. So far as materialistic writers are concerned, they seem to hold that consciousness is either produced by the brain of man and certain other highly developed animals, or is the intensification of a primitive form of sensation with which they regard matter to be endowed. But neither of these views is sound philosophically, as will appear from an analysis of the functions of consciousness. The first hypothesis is contradicted by the fact of logical inference which is impossible on the supposition of consciousness being a function, not of a simple entity but of a composite substance, consisting of

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15 separate and separable parts, such as the human brain. It will be seen that logical inference is possible only where the conclusion is to be drawn by the same mind or conscious unit as is in possession of the premises from which it is to be drawn; not otherwise; for if one "consciousness be only aware of one premise and a different one of the other premise, then neither of them nor any other can draw any inference whatsoever. "" Similarly, if one part of the brain be possessed of one premise and another of the other one, it will be impossible for a conclusion to be drawn from them. Now, since the physical brain is concerned with the drawing of a conclusion, it must be that there is a conscious unit somewhere in it or in association with it. But as the brain is only composed of atoms of matter on the materialistic hypothesis, the idea of a conscious unit with reference to it cannot be extended beyond the four corners of a solitary atom; for nothing but an atom is capable of being described as not consisting of parts in the domain of matter. Consciousness thus ceases to be a function of the brain, and becomes the property of atomic matter. But this is really the second of the two hypotheses advanced by the modern materialist to account for consciousness. As for the merit of this hypothesis, there is

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16 absolutely nothing in the facts of observation to support it, beyond two things, namely, firstly, that matter is known to affect the manifestation of consciousness, and, secondly, that all beings are not endowed with the same kind of mental powers. These facts do not, however, establish anything more than this that the degree of conscious manifestation in unemancipated souls depends on the quality or quantity or both of matter which may be existing in combination with the soul. The materialist's conclusion-that the dependence of consciousness on matter demonstrates the non-existence of the soulcould be reached only if it were postulated as a fact that the soul was not liable to be affected by matter. As Jainism points out, the differences in the degree of conscious manifestation among different orders of beings as well the liability of an unemancipated soul to be affected by matter is due to the force known as Jnanavarniya Karma, which means a definite group of forces that tend to curtail the knowing faculties of the soul. Jainism also points out that these knowledge-obstructing forces are generated by the fusion of spirit and matter both of which are real substances, as stated before. The supposition that there can be no soul unless it remain in one and the same condition under all circumstances is childish and has never been advanced by true philosophy. We thus find nothing

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17 ter. in these facts of observation which may be said to be inconsistent with the spiritual hypothesis. On the contrary, it is evident that materialism has failed to understand the nature of consciousness which it has hastily declared to be the fundamental property of an atom of matter. For neither the phenomena of higher consciousness nor the supernormal faculties of clairvoyance and the like can be conceived as having sprung from a primitive nucleus in an atom of matWe cannot regard these higher manifestations as purely magnified versions of the supposed atomic consciousness. They differ both with respect to quality as well as quantity; and the differences are such as cannot possibly be regarded as due to augmentation or intensification of the original nucleus. The most pronounced materialists have not associated atomic sensitiveness with either smell or sight or hearing, and the wildest conjecture fails to guess how these faculties could arise by mere augmentation or magnifying of the barest susceptibility to sensations of touch which is all that the atomic consciousness is supposed to be capable of. There is not an iota of evidence to support the proposition that internal qualitative changes can be wrought by mere increase of intensity or bulk, or even by external quantitative arrangements or regroupings of individuals or units of a given substance. To bring about such quali

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tative changes two or more substances or things with different* properties will have to be combined and compounded together, or those existing in combinations separated. But it is not stated that the primitive conscious nucleus or soul bound up in one atom of matter is different from that in another, so that on the supposition of the groupings of atoms we bave a simple case of augmentation, which, as stated before, is insufficient and inadequate to account for the facts and functions of the higher forms of consciousness. As the nature of a drop of water is not altered by its being merged in a large mass of other similar drops, so is not the alteration of nature and function conceivable for crude atomic' souls' by intensification. This is sufficient to dispose of the absurd thesis that souls are produced from atoms of matter. The independence of the soul from matter is evident from the nature of memory, which certainly cannot be a function of what is itself created or secreted afresh, every moment, after the * It is not to be supposed that the case of the four natural elements, fire, water and the like, constitutes an exception to this rule, for while it is true that all atoms are alike in respect of their general qualities as matter, they are not alike with respect to their chemical and other kinds of specific properties-colour and the like--as atoms. The elements are thus composed of different kinds of atoms and cannot be said to be the resultant of a pure process of augmentation or intensification of a single property or attribute.

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19 supposed manner of our consciousness arising from the secretions of a changing perishable brain. A substratum of individuality* which endures in time is absolutely essential for recollection, and no amount of secretions from learned or primitive brains can ever take the place of such an individuality. We shall advance only one more argument to show that the soul cannot be an attribute or specific property of an atom of matter or the secretion of the physical matter of the brain. This argument is furnished by the fact that the soul pervades the physical body in its entirety. Now, if the soul did not pervade its body in its entirety, it would be confined to some specific place; but in that case it The individuality of the soul is not affected by the fact that there are to be found more living beings than one in certain organisms in nature. As Jainism points out, there are two kinds of organisms, namely, firstly, those that are inhabited by one soul each, and, secondly, those that resemble a colony of souls. The characteristic of the latter is that they generally have a common mouth and share certain other organs of their bodies in common, but are otherwise separate and distinct from each other. They certainly do not combine to form one soul by intensification or any other process or method; and the destruction of one or more of them does not mean the destruction of them all. They are like the Hungarian twins, one of whom died without in any way affecting the individuality of the surviving sister, although the latter must have suffered grievously, in mind and body both, from the demise of one so closely and literally affiliated to her as to share her lower limbs.

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20 would not be able to feel pleasant and unpleasant bodily affections in those parts and limbs of its physical incasement which were not pervaded by it. The supposition that a sensory message is received by the soul from the seat of the trouble is untrue, inasmuch as there can be no feeling of pleasure or pain in that case. For just as it is impossible for a man, who hears that his house is set on fire, to experience the actual sensation of burning, however distressing the piece of information might otherwise prove to be, so is it not possible for the soul to experience aught but purely mental distress on the receipt of a message of pain from a place where it is not. And, lastly, even assuming that physical pain could be caused by the message received, then the painful feeling would be confined to the substance of the soul itself, and, therefore, necessarily to the cavity of the heart or wherever else the soul might be located. But since this is not the case, we must assume that the soul pervades its body in its entirety. It hardly needs any argument from me to convince you that a soul which is confined within the four corners of a tiny microscopical atom of matter or to the physical matter of the brain cannot be regarded as pervading the whole body. The fact is that spirit is a substance by itself, though of a different kind from matter. Observation shows how it is affected by matter

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21 (e.g., increase of animation and consciousness by the use of such things as musk and coffee), and how, in its own turn, it is capable of affecting matter and conditions dependent on it, as the curing of disease by purely mental suggestion or will power. As for consciousness, it is an inalienable property of spirit, though liable to be affected by matter, as already observed. This is tantamount to saying that knowledge is the very nature of spirit (jiva). If any one will put to himself the simple question: what is knowledge? he will readily agree with me that there can be no knowledge apart from or independently of a knowing being. For knowledge is not a reflection of an object in consciousness, like a reflection in a mirror, nor anything other than a sense of awareness, which may be occasioned by the instrumentality of an external object, but which is totally different from all objects of knowledge or their reflections in the ordinary sense of the term. Reflection will show that the sense of awareness which we term consciousness is an inner, subjective, psychic state that is best described by the term feeling of awareness, so that my knowledge of a thing is my feeling of awareness of its presence or existence. As such, my consciousness of an object implies the simultaneous awareness of my own being as well as that of the ob

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ject of my knowledge. This will be clear to any one who has understood the nature of knowledge to consist in a sense or feeling of awareness, for one can but feel one's own being and the states or conditions of that being as occasioned or modified by the influence of another being or thing. These states or conditions, it should be further noticed, are not pure imaginary abstractions ; they inhere in the soul-substance and are actually its modifications. They are felt by the soul as such, and not as something different from or independent of its own being. Hence it is wrong to think that in knowing an object of knowledge the soul is only aware of the object, but not of itself. The fact is that only that which has a concrete existence can be felt by the soul, and as the states of consciousness, that is to say, of the soul-substance, have no existence apart from the soul-substance itself, they can only be felt along with and simultaneously with the soul's own being itself. This is so even with reference to the feelings of pleasure and pain with which all of us are familiar. When I say, 'I am feeling pain', or 'I feel pleasure,' I do not mean that pleasure and pain are concrete things outside my own being which I have alighted upon in some mysterious way. What I do mean is that I am aware of a state or modification of my being which is pleasant in one

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23 case and painful in the other. Pleasure and pain are thus only conditions of my own being and are felt by me as states of my consciousness, that is to say, of the general feeling of awareness which I have of myself. The same is the case with knowledge. We conclude, then, that spirit is a unique kind of substance which is characterised by consciousness and life. As such, it is the subject of knowledge and is quite independent of the brain and of the matter of which the brain is composed. The cause of the error into which materialism has fallen seems to lie in the erroneous notion that spirit could not be affected by matter nor could influence it in its own turn. Obsessed with such a notion as this, the investigators could not but go astray, and no one need wonder if their investigations have not led them to a soul that is unchanging or to a consciousness that does not inhere in some kind of substance or other. We must now proceed to investigate the nature of spirit ourselves to understand its destiny. The most striking feature of spirit, of course, is consciousness, though life is the real synonymn for it. This is so because, while consciousness is latent and not always observable in certain conditions even in rational animals and men, as for instance when they are asleep, life is a sure indi

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24 cation of the presence of spirit, and easily distinguishable from a non-living substance. For this reason the term jiva (living substance) is employed in the Jaina Siddhanta for spirit, and ajiva (notspirit) for the remaining substances. As a conscious entity, every soul is omniscient by nature, however much that omniscience may remain unmanifest in ordinary cases. The argument which proves the omniscient nature of the soul consists of the following two propositions, namely: 1. all things are knowable; and 2. the soul is a substance whose function is to know. The first of these propositions-all things are knowable-means that that which can never be known by any one is non-existent ; for what nobody can ever know will never be proved to exist, and what will never be proved to exist can never have -- *The argument that if living beings come to an end before the completion of scientific enquiry things must remain unknown, is not to the point, for that would not make them unknowable. That term, it will be seen, is not a synonymn for what is termed unknown, but possesses the additional attribute of never being known to any one, although capable enquiring minds exist and become engaged in the exploration of nature and the investigation of truth. Hence, if radium, wireless telegraphy, gramophone and the like discoveries and inventions of the nineteenth century A.D. had remained for ever unknown because of the total disappearance of knowing beings at the end of the eighteenth century, it would only have been a case of knowable things remaining unknown, but not of any of the unknowable sort.

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25 the remotest claim to existence. To put the same argument in different words, before we concede existence in favour of a thing some one will have to prove its existence; but he who will prove its existence will at least know it himself. Now extend the scope of the conclusion and we have it that everything that can ever be proved to exist must be known to at least one being-which is our first proposition. The second proposition--that the soul is a substance whose function it is to know-has already been established in these pages and needs no further proof now. Now, since the soul is a substance and since the properties of a substance are the same wherever it may be found, it follows that all souls are alike in respect of their attributes and function. Hence, what one soul can know, all others can know also. Thus every soul has the capacity to know all that every other soul knew in the past, knows now, or will ever know in the future. In other words, every soul is omniscient by nature, that is, in potency. The cause or causes whicb stand in the way of the realisation of this potential omniscience will be enquired into later when we come to investigate the doctrine of karma. Meanwhile we shall study the nature of happiness which every living being is anxious to secure for himself.

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26 Observation shows that happiness, like knowledge, is only a state or condition of Life itself. Certainly there is no such thing as happiness in the outside world, and even if there were, it is not easy to imagine how it could confer happiness on another. The truth is that happiness only arises from within, and generally only when the soul is freed from the load of anxiety or worry in some form or other. The feeling of joy which a school boy feels on his success in an examination only arises from within, and is clearly occasioned by the assurance that never again need that ordeal be undergone. The sense of freedom from future straining and striving is, thus, the immediate cause of joy, which, as stated before, arises from within Life's own mysterious being. Life or Soul, then, is the very Fountain-spring of joy. Passing on now to a consideration of Eternal Life, it is easy to see that every soul is immortal by nature, being, as already noted, devoid of parts which might disintegrate or fall apart. Bodily death, it will be seen, is due to the soul's association with or ensoulment in a physical body which is liable to decompose and disintegrate, being made of atoms of matter; but that which is not made of atoms or parts is not so liable in any way. Pure spirit, then, is immortal as well, in addition to being omniscient and blissful. But om

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27 niscience, bliss and immortality are the very things which we associate with our most exalted conceptions of Divinity. It follows, therefore, that every soul is a God in embryo, and only needs full unfoldment to attain to Godhood. This is why we find all religions concurring in the ancient injunction: man know thyself. Mahomed also said: 'He who knoweth himself, knoweth God.' The Bible, too, exhorts us to attain the perfection of God in the following remarkable words (Matt. V. 48): "Be ye therefore perfect even as the Father in Heaven is perfect." It was certainly meant that the perfection of God could be accomplished by the human soul, for otherwise it would be monstrous to ask one to do a thing which it is impossible to attain. A Mahomedan poet puts the case even more clearly when he says: chwr shwd bydr khdy'y dr khwb st * tw ndny t tw hsty The use of the word clue is here very significant, the translation being : so long as the egotistical 'l' in thee is in evidence, a God is asleep; when thou shalt cease to be, he shall wake up. Shams Tabrez also said : : : . tbryzm khh gshtm shyfth br khwd - `jb mn shms chw khwd r khrd nZr khrdm nh dydm jz khd dr khwd - [Tr.--- What a wonderful being am I, Shams of Tabrez: when I came to look into myself, I found none but God in the self.]

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28 In Hinduism also we have it that the Atman (the individual soul) and Paramatman (God) are the same. Thus all concur in the dictum of the Jaina Siddhanta that the soul is a divinity in embryo; but the question is, how is the potential to be translated into the actual? In other words, how are we to attain to the status of a God? The answer to these questions is quite simple, and consists in the removal of the causes which debar us from the enjoyment of our natural properties, omniscience, bliss and immortality. For it is but common sense to say that the removal of the cause must lead to the disappearance of the effect. The problem, then, reduces itself to the simple question, what is the force which prevents us from the enjoyment of our natural attributes, and how is it generated ? Now, it is obvious that the functions of a substance cannot be limited, modified or curtailed, except by some other substance. It follows, therefore, that if the soul is unable to exercise its natural functions, its inability to do so must be due to the harmful influence of some other substance with which it must be associated. The Jaina Siddhanta points out that matter is the substance which gets into combination with spirit and thereby gives rise to various kinds of forces, restricting and curtailing the natural properties and functions of the soul.

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The rule is that with every movement or actionwhether physical, mental or vocal--there is an influx of material particles towards the soul, which combines with the incoming material under the influence of its desires. This is not the place to enter into a minute analysis of the subject, but if any one will try to find out the reason why the relish of food is not enjoyed when attention is directed elsewhere, he will not be long in perceiving that an all-absorbing interest in the object of attention at the time and the want of attentiveness towards the food actually on the tongue prevent the relishparticles from reaching and affecting the soul. This is tantamount to saying that there is an influx of relish-particles from the food in the mouth to the soul and that the latter is affected by and becomes cognisant of them only when they combine with it, which combining is effected through attention and prevented by the mind being deeply interested in something else at the time. But interest is merely another word for desire in this sense. Hence the rule that the fusion between spirit and matter takes place in consequence of desire. The destruction of desire, then, is the means to the salvation of the soul. It is for this reason that every rational religion enjoins the practising of renunciation on its followers. So long as the soul remains in association or

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30 combination with matter, it exists in an impure condition and cannot attain to the status and perfection of divinity. It is also subject to repeated births and deaths, .e., transmigration, in that condition. The idea is that the somatic death does not signify a complete separation between spirit and matter, for if that were so every soul would become a God the moment it breathed its last, which would be absurd. The material impurities adhere to the ego in the form of two subtle invisible bodies, known as the karmana (the body of karmas) and the taijasa sariras (the body of electric matter), and in consequence of the forces of magnetism and chemical affinity which are set in motion by and through them the soul is attracted and drawn into a new womb immediately on its being released from its gross physical body in consequence of death. As for the circumstances and conditions of the future life, the rule is that the soul being the maker of its own body and liable to be affected by its surroundings, impressions, tendencies and beliefs, the organizing forces residing in the two inner bodies referred to above are modified at the end of each incarnation, giving rise to differences of bodies and bodily limbs from life to life. Hence, whether an individual is born in pleasant surroundings or those that are disagreeable, whether he incarnates among men or brutes, whether he

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is endowed with strong conmonsense or is devoid of it, and other such differences of temperaments, surroundings, environments and the like, are all due to the different tendencies evolved out by him. Thus is birth followed by death and death by re-birth till nirvana is attained, when the soul is rid of all kinds and forms of material impurities once for all and continues to live for ever in its own natural purity as pure Effulgence of Spirit, omniscient, immortal and all-happiness. Such, ladies and gentlemen, is the goal of philosophy of the Jaina Siddhanta-it aspires to raise puny miserable mortals to the status and dignity of Gods. It only remains for me to say that it has not been possible for me to do aught more than to touch the bare fringe of the subject, though we have devoted so much time to it. But if any one feel interested in the further study of the subject, there are books now available which may be obtained from the Central Jaina Publishing House, Arrah, as well as elsewhere, and which will be found to be helpful for the purpose. I must not forget to thank you for your attentiveness throughout this long discourse before I resume my seat. Such interest in a subject matter of this kind is certainly expected to be productive of good results. What I particularly wish you to note to-day is that the soul is an

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32 immortal substance which survives physical death, passing into fresh surroundings and environments there and then. Whether these conditions are agreeable or undesirable rests entirely with your own self. If you exert in improving yourself, by curbing your desires and animal proclivities and propensities, you will obtain pleasant agreeable conditions and surroundings and ultimately also nirvana, that is Godhood; but otherwise there can be nothing but brambles and thorns for your lot in your future rebirths. Indifference to Religion would be justified if there were to be no future life for the ego; but that foolish supposition is no longer possible for you. It is certain that the soul is immortal and will find itself in fresh environments when this life shall have come to an end. Will you not, therefore, now take the shaping of your destiny in your own hands, instead of allowing it to be marred and ruined by your indifference and wrong living? The secret of success lies in Renunciation, i.e., the eradictaion of desires. Will you not now justify your claim to be considered a rational being by giving up from this moment the worst form of desire-the tearing off and eating the flesh of your innocent fellow-beings? At least, will you not make a beginning now by giving up shikar (sport) which is sure to lead the soul to the very worst conditions of life in hell? If you under

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33 stood the language of the mute appeal of the innocent victim of your sporting lust, you would find it to consist of but three words-ahimsa paramo dharmah (non-injury is the highest religion). He appeals to you, not only so that you may spare his life, which you hold so lightly through ignorance, but also that you may have pity on your own soul that is in imminent danger of descending into hell when the oil of life here runs short. And it is to be hoped that this highly humane appeal from dumb animal lips does not fall on entirely deaf ears. Sri Jaina DHARMA KI JAI. Printed by Apurva Krishna Bose, at the Indian Press, Allahabad.

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