Shraman Bhagvana Mahavira Part 1

SR No.: 008001
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Ratnaprabhvijay, D P Thaker
Publisher: Parimal Publication
Publication Year: 1989
Total Pages: 650
Language: English, Sanskrit
Classification: Book_English, Biography, History, & Religion
File Size: 15 MB

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being. The God according to the Jainas is Paramatman, but not Ishvara, i. e. the God is not a creator and ruler but he is a perfect Being who cannot be set back to the imperfect conditiva of this world, as such is worshipful. I can compare the Jaina idea of God only with the conception of the “Uebermensch" i. 6. Super-being ) of the great German philosopher Nietzsche whonI do not leny it-I consider in wany respects, as my spiritual leader.
And this is the very point where I see the greatest subli. mity of the Jaina religion and am strongly opposed to those who may call Jainis an atheism, and thereby deny its being * religion at all. My opinion is that the Jaina religion went only up to the highest aim to do everything for the intellectual claims but to remain still a religion with its typical features of which the idea of God is the indispensable one. Therefore, the Jaina religion can be called, with full authority, the limit-form ant only of the Aryan religions, but of all religions altogether.
And in this character of a limit-religion lies the great importance of the Jaina Religion for the comparative soience of religions, For, it is the required upper limit, 8ccording to which we are able to judge of the other human phenomena, whether still religious or not. But this is not the only importance of Jainism for the study of comparative science of religions. Equally important for the scientific study of religions are the Jaina Ethias, not to speak about its Logic.
I have no time to go in details on this subject, but I must mention only a few characteristic manifestations of this superiority of Jainism, I mention only the theory of the Infinite Numbers, as it dealt with id the TV Loka-prakāśa, and which corresponds with the most modern mathematical theories. And the Theory of Identity of Time and Space, is one of the problems, which are now most discussed by the scientists owing to Einstein's theory, and which are already solved or prepared for solution in Jaiga metaphysios.