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JAINISM: A THEISTIC PHILOSOPHY "GOD IN JAINISM"
Jainism believes in plurality of the souls. According to Jainas there are infinite jīvas or souls. Not only human beings, but also each animate being, each living organism possesses a soul. About innumerable number of jīvas, Nahar writes, “This soul substance of Jains is not a single, all pervading reality without a second of its kind to stand by it. There is infinity of these souls. And though it is true that an infinite number of these has become free from the turmoil's of the world; yet there remains an infinite struggling for freedom; for if infinity is taken from infinity the remainder is infinite itself."-S2
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The Jains do not reduce all the particular finite souls to one single principal or universal self; they, on the contrary maintain the existence of infinite independent souls. Mrs. S. Stevenson writes,
they (Jains) also differ, of course, from the Vedantist, who believe in one all-soul not in numberless individual souls like this.”53
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Nahar and Ghosh, “An Epitome of Jainism”, P-279 "Sinclair Stevenson, “Heart of Jainism”, P-98
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