Introduction to Jainism and its Culture

SR No.: 001605
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Balbhadra Jain
Publisher: Kundkund Gyanpith Indore
Publication Year: 2002
Total Pages: 334
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Religion, & Culture
File Size: 21 MB

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Śankarācārya has logically refuted this belief in Nyāya philosophy about creation of the universe in, exegesis of many aphorisms in his Bhāşya of Vedānta Sūtra'. The gist of that refutation is -- God cannot indulge in creation of the universe using matter or ultimate particles available in nature because being incorporeal God is antithetical to matter particles. Ultimate particles cannot be the instrument of indulgence of such God. It has no physical body therefore in absence of tangibility or being incorporeal He cannot be a doer. If we accept that God has tendencies like sense organs, He will be entrapped in carnality and ailments and loose His godliness. The God of followers of Nyāya philosophy is no God because He is mortal and ignorant.
Kumāril Bhatt and Pārthasārathi Miśra, the commentators of Mīmāṁsā philosophy have refuted the other points. The relevant portions of the logical refutation given by them in ślokavārtika and Śästradīpika are briefly mentioned here.
There is no known time when the universe was created; it has always been like this only. There was no moment in the past when nothing existed in the universe. If there was nothing, the universe could not have been formed because creation is an effect in the form of activity, and in absence of a cause there can be no effect. If there is clay then only a pitcher can be made. If the raw material for the universe was already available what did God create?
When there was nothing before the universe was created, where did that God live? Moreover, how will you justify the existence of desire and effort in something that is incorporeal because action is impossible for a formless and all pervading thing, as in the case of space? Desire is an attribute of body and even effort is made through body. An incorporeal thing cannot have desire and effort. If we accept God as having a form and embodied there has to a tangible basis or place for it. In that case how and where the first act of creation starts? Did the all-pervading God create the whole universe at once? Why a desire entailing agitation was born in a tranquil and peaceful God? No noble person wants to inflict misery on anyone, then why the kind God created this world full of miseries and made infinite beings miserable. If that is the attitude of God he should amend it. If He causes misery to
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