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 70

MAHAVIRA AND HIS TIMES To the Jainas there is no need to assume any first cause of the universe1 They deny the existence of an intelligent first cause ? and repudiate the theory of the creation of the world out of nothing or out of a series of accidents. To the Jaina thinker the systematic Working of the law of nature cannot be a product of luck or accident. He cannot conceive how a non-creative God suddenly becomes creative. "If God created the universe," asks Acarya Jinasena, "Where was he before creating it? If he was not in space, where did he localise the universe? How could a formless or immaterial substance like God create the world of matter? If the material is to be taken as existing, why not take the world itself as unbegun ? If the creator was uncreated, why not suppose the world to be itself self-existing ?" Then he continues : "Is God self-sufficient ? If he is, he need not have created the world If he is not, like an ordinary potter, he would be incapable of the task, since, by hypothesis, only a perfect being could produce it. If God created the world as a mere play of his will, it would be making God childish. If God is benevolent and if he has created the world out of his grace, he would not have brought into existence misery as well as felicity." 3 If it is argued that everything that exists must have a maker, then that maker himself would stand in need of another maker, and we would be landed in a cycle, the way from which to escape is to assume the reality of a self-subsisting maker who is the author of everything else. Here again is raised the problem that if it is possible for one being to be self-subsistent and eternal, is it not possible for more things and beings to be uncreated and substantive? Then the Jaina mind puts forth the hypothesis of a number of substances, and the world is explained on the theory of the necessity of all substances to manifest themselves. "The whole universe of being, of mental and material factors has existed from all eternity, undergoing an infinite number of revolutions produced nifer are prota: na: स सर्वगः स खबशः स नित्यः / इमाः कुहेवाकविडम्बनाः स्यु - स्तेपा न येपामनुशासकस्त्वम् // 6 // Hemacandra, Svadoadamastart (ed Motilal Ladhazi), v 6, p 24, see toid , pp 14 ff Radhakrishnan, opet, 1, p 289 Cf also Vijayadharmasuri, Bhandarlar Commemoratze Volume, pp 150-151 * Latthe, Introduction to Jainism, pp 85-87, Jinasena, Adi Purana, chap in CS Bhandarkar, Report on Sanskrit MSS, 1883-1884, P 118 85