Study of Jainism

SR No.: 001748
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: T G Kalghatgi
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy
Publication Year: 1988
Total Pages: 252
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Religion, & Philosophy
File Size: 13 MB

Page 183

CHAPTER--7
THAT THOU ART
Philosophy in India, like religion, as way of life, is the man's reaction to totality of things. It implies the interpretation of nature and the meaning of the Universe. And the presence of 'god' gave strength to man's enquiry. God was for man a natural
chological necessity. As Prof. Leuba pointed out that fear was the first emotion to become organised in human life. And out of this fear, God was born. Perhaps love and admiration mixed with gratitude were equally important and an integral part of man's nature. We do not know It is possible that men have looked upon gods with a living sense of kinship. In the higher religions fear is sublimated by love into an adoring worship.2 Man created god and then was subjected to the will of god.
In India, in the Vedic period, we find a movement of thought from polytheism to monotheism and then to monism. Many gods were created many gods were worshipped. A weariness towards the worship of numerous gods began to be felt. A theistic conception of God as the creator was crystallised. In ancient Greece, Xenophone was against the polytheism of his time. Socrates had to drink hemlock as he was charged of denying the national gods. He distinguished between the many gods and the one God who is the Creator of the Universe. As Compte said, modern science has dispensed with gods in general and the God as a creator. Modern science has conducted God to the frontiers and bowed Him out with thanks for his past services.
The Jainas, like the Buddhists, were against gods in general and the God as the creator in particular. They presented several arguments against the theistic conception of God. The Naiydyika argument that the world is of the nature of an effect created by an intelligent agent who is God (I svara) cannot be accepted for the following reasons :
i) It is difficult to understand the nature of the world as an effect:
a) If effect is to mean that which is made of parts (savayava)
then even space is to be regarded as effect :