Jainism in North India

SR No.: 011067
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Chimanlal J Shah
Publisher: Longmans Green and Compny London
Publication Year: 1932
Total Pages: 66
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 3 MB

Page 69

JAINISM IN NORTH INDIA and coincidences of the Jaina annals. It is truc no doubt that this period of Indian history is chequered with numerous traditions, Jama, Buddhust or Hindu, and sometimes because of some or the other interest or object in view they are so arranged by latcr writers that it has become an impossible task to find out the rcal truth behind the whole show. Now, according to the Jaina tradition, the whole interval between Ajatasatru and Condragupta has been filled up by Udayin and the Nine Nandas, while writers like Merutunga tell us that the Nanda rule lasted for one hundred and fiftyfive years On the other hand Hemacandra has allotted only ninety-five years for the Nandas, by which he rightly means the Nine Nandas However, the chronological period of 480-467 B.C. that we have put down for Mahavira's Nirvana is--as is often inevitable in our efforts to reconstruct the mosaic of ancient Indian history from the few pieces which have as yet been found -an attempt to do little more than define the limits of possible hypothesis in this instance. For greater certainty we must be content to wait until the progress of archeological research has furnished us with more adequate materials HII Coming to the reformed Jaina church of Mahavira or Jainism as such we find that it is not possible to talk at length about that either All that can be done within a limited scope like this is to mark its salient features and its beliefs about the ordinary problems, inquiries and difficulties of a man's spiritual lifc. RcHlection is the moving spirit of philosophy. Early philosophical reflection engages itself with searching for the origin of the world, and it attempts to formulate the law of causation. In this respect Jainism is atheistic, if by atheism we understand the belief that there is no eternal supreme God, Creator and Lord of all things. "The atheism of the Jainas means denial of a divine crcative spirit". The Tainas flatly deny such supreme God, but they believe in the eternity of existence, universality of life, immut ability of the Law of Karma, and supreme intelligence as the means to self-liberation IC Rapson, CR1,1, 813 Lopkins, op cit, pp 285-286 "Their only real gods are their chiefs or teachers, whose idols are worshipped in the temples "-Ibd 84