History of Indian Philosophy

SR No.: 007593
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Surendranath Dasgupta
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication Year: 1922
Total Pages: 2517
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 125 MB

Page 220

VI]
Anti-therstic Arguments
203 and without samatva there is no dhyāna. In order to make the mind steady by dhyāna one should think of maitri (universal friendship), prainoda (the habit of emphasizing the good sides of men), karuņā (universal compassion) and mădhyastha (indifference to the wickedness of people, i.e. the habit of not taking any note of sinners). The Jaina dhyāna consists in concentrating the mind on the syllables of the Jaina prayer phrases. The dhyāna however as we have seen is only practised as an aid to making the mind steady and perfectly equal and undisturbed towards all things. Emancipation comes only as the result of the final extinction of the karma materials. Jaina yoga is thus a complete course of moral discipline which leads to the purification of the mind and is hence different from the traditional Hindu yoga of Patanjali or even of the Buddhists!
Jaina Atheism? The Naiyāyikas assert that as the world is of the nature of an effect, it must have been created by an intelligent agent and this agent is īśvara (God). To this the Jain replies, “What does the Naiyāyika mean when he says that the world is of the nature of an effect"? Does he mean by "effect,” (1) that which is made up of parts (sävayava), or, (2) the coinherence of the causes of a non-existent thing, or, (3) that which is regarded by anyone as having been made, or, (4) that which is liable to change (vikāritvam). Again, what is meant by being “made up of parts"? If it means existence in parts, then the class-concepts (sāmānya) existing in the parts should also be regarded as effects, and hence destructible, but these the Naiyāyikas regard as being partless and eternal. If it means "that which has parts," then even "space" (ākāśa) has to be regarded as “effect,” but the Naiyāyika regards it as eternal.
Again "effect" cannot mean "coinherence of the causes of a thing which were previously non-existent," for in that case one could not speak of the world as an effect, for the atoms of the elements of earth, etc., are regarded as eternal.
Again if "effect" means "that which is regarded by anyone as
Yogaśāstra, by Hemacandra, edited by Windisch, in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morg. Gesellschaft, Leipsig, 1874, and Dravyasamgraha, edited by Ghoshal, 1917.
See Gunaratna's Tarkarahasyadipikā.