Confluence of Opposites

SR No.: 006704
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: Champat Rai Jain
Publication Year: 1921
Total Pages: 422
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 15 MB

Page 343

CONFLUENCE OF OPPOSITES 325 which falleth from heaven. Besides this real God, there are two other kinds of Gods whose worship is prevalent in the world, namely the true Masters or Tirthamkaras, who are to be idealised as models of Perfection for us to take pattern after, and the imagi. nary gods of mythology, which are pure personifications of the different aspects of life and of certain other abstractions, It is the worship of these mythological products of the buman imagination that is forbidden and is the cause of all kinds of misunderstanding, bloodshed and superstition. We shall consider the proper form of worship in our next lecture, but before concluding this one I inust draw your attention to the fact that in Zoroastrianism also the conception of Ahura Mazda is pluralistic. Haug points out with reference to the word ahuraonho (see Essays on The Parsis, p. 199, footnote) :"From this......one inay clearly see that ahura is not a title
copfiued to the Supreme Being, but can be applied to men
algo." 11 Yasna xxviii. 9 it is said :“ With these bounties, 0 Ahura, may we never provoke your
wrath, O Mazdah and Right and Best thought,...yo are they that are mightiest to advance desires and Dominion
of Blessings " (Early Zoroastria nism, p. 346). The same idea underlies the teachivg in Yasna li. 20, which reads : " Your blessings shall ye give us, all ye that are one in will ;
with whom Rigbt, Good Thought, Piety, and Mazdab