________________
23
Now I come back to the quotation with which I began this article. The Vedanta metaphysics teaches that salvation comes through knowledge (of Brahman). It is not the potential that through effort and conquest becomes the acual; and we are further taught that that which is is real now. On the other hand, Jainism teaches that from the ideal and transcendental standpoint you are Brabman, but its eternality, the real Mukti, comes from work and knowledge together, not form one alone. Through work and knowledge, Jainism says, the individual develops and unfolds the potential; tberefore, the statement, “I am Brahman," would be interpreted by a Jain to mean--I am Brahman only inherently, or in embryo; I have the capacity or the actual possibility of Brahman; what I am implicitly must become explicit. There is a vast difference between the implicit and the explicit. Those who do not recognize this difference would never make an attempt to become rational and free.
The doctrine of the Jains known as Sjadvada or Anekanta-vada, it is proper to affirm, in the words of a writer in America.
is competent to descend into the ntmost minutiæ of metaphysics and to settle all the vexed questions of abstruse speculation by a positive method (not inerely asserting na iti, na iti, not so, not so )-to settle at any rate the limits of what it is possible to determine by any method which the human mind may be rationally supposed to possess. It promises to reconcile
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org