Jain Journal 1972 10

SR No.: 520028
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication
Publication Year: 1972
Total Pages: 55
Language: English
Classification: Magazine, India_Jain Journal, & India
File Size: 3 MB

Page 32

OCTOBER, 1972
e.g., the earth, the mountain, etc., are certainly uncreated and eternal, so that we cannot talk of any causes bringing them into existence. Although the Jainas do not admit an Isvara who is world-creator, they do admit a perfect human-being who is the best of teachers. This perfect Being is called the Tirthankara and the Jainas call him lśvara, i.e., God. There is essential difference between the Isvara of the Jainas and the lśvara of Vedic School. The God of the Jainas is not the creator of the world ; he was originally a mortal human being who through self-culture and self-development attained the god-head, consisting in teachership; the Tirthankara Gods are also more than one in number. Besides the disembodied perfect Beings who are completely free and are omniscient according to the Jainas, a highly developed Being while in body may attain omniscience also. The Tirthankaras were such Beings who attained omniscience, while they lived, moved and had their Being still in this world.
(5) In the six-fold classification of souls according to their senseorgans, the Jainas developed the theory of evolution several thousand years before Darwin wrote his 'Origin of Species'. The one-sensed Soul has the organ of touch only, the two-sensed animal can touch and taste, the three-sensed creature is possessed of the powers of touching, tasting and smelling ; a four-sensed soul's organs are those of touch, taste, smell and vision; the mindless five-sensed animal has the organ of hearing in addition to the above four-sensed-organs; the minded fivesensed soul is possessed of the five sense-organs and the mind. Flora has only one-sense and cannot move. Animals, having more than one sense, can move. Shells and oysters have two senses. Ants and leeches have three-senses. Bugs, worms and gnats have four-senses. Snakes and quadrupeds are five-sensed animals. Man is a five-sensed animal, with Manas (power of thinking) in addition. This Jaina classification tallies with the modern account of the evolution of life. The fact is now scientifically established that it is the unicellular organisms that gave out the first and the crudest indications of life. Coming next to the Jaina description of the two-sensed and other higher animals, we find that the principle is recognised that the human organism is the most developed, that there are animals which are less and less developed and that an order is traceable in the scale of animal evolution.
(6) By attributing to them a consciousness of their own purposive activity, the Jaina theory, certainly rejects the notorious Cartesian doctrine that the sub-human animals are unconscious automata. It does more than that, in as much as it foreshadows the celebrated theory of Sir J. C. Bose, which is rapidly gaining ground, that the operations of